A Nevernever Story
by Greame
Summary: When a routine exercise in intelligence gathering is interrupted by a dying man, Daniel Archdale, Ordained Herald to the White Council of Wizards, finds himself assigned to a dangerous mission that will lead him to the deepest reaches of the Nevernever. The journey will be perilous but if he fails, the death toll will be immense. OC main character, set Post Changes.
1. Chapter 1

_The Dresden Files is copyright Jim Butcher. This story is licensed under the Creative Commons as derivative, noncommercial fiction._

* * *

Who am I? That's a good question. My full name is Daniel Julius Archdale, though as a Wizard and Ordained Herald of the White Council I don't say that aloud much. My friends call me Danny and, for better or for worse, that included those at the table around me.

"I raise $10," I said and threw the money into the pot.

"I see your ten," said Flin. "And raise you the first laugh of an orphaned child." He then proceeded to chuck a small glowing coin into the pot. I just sighed.

Flin is an under baronet pro tem in the Seelie Court, or something equally low ranking and innain. That technically makes him a Lord of the Summer Sidhe, if only barely and possibly only in a good light and if he got out of the bed on the right side that morning. It also means you couldn't trust him.

"No," grumbled Adam in his earth-deep voice, and, really, how else would a clay golem speak? He was made to be an emissary to the outside world by one of the more reclusive Nevernever powers. I'm sure his creators never envisioned his uses vis-à-vis poker rules.

"Adam's right," I said and gave Flin a look which rolled off him like water off a duck. Intimidating I'm not. "Table rules. Bets must be in United States of America currency, as defined by statute and legal in all ways. No fairy gold, no glamours, no transmogrified Chairmen of the Federal Reserve. Cold hard cash or at least paper."

"Oh fine," said Flin and rolled his golden eyes. Really the motion was only a few steps short of a flounce. "In which case I raise $100."

I resisted the urge to hiss. $100 is a lot of money, at least for me. The White Council pays me well enough but not so I could drop a Benjamin on a single hand. Still I had a good hand. Three Threes, a Jack, a King and a second up my sleeve if I truly needed it. If the worst came, losing a little money could even help with my true task here tonight.

Adam folded but Arborax met the bet.

"Call," I said and threw in a $100 note. "Let's see the cards."

I placed mine on the table, a low three of a kind. Arborax just had two pair, which put me well ahead. Then Flin put his hand down, showing three Sevens, a One and an Ace. He smiled like a cat as he raked in the pot. Never trust a faerie, even to be untrustworthy. Still there were more hands to go.

Adam took the deck, we all threw in the $10 auntie and he began dealing out cards. I, meanwhile, slipped back into table small-talk. We were speaking Waytalk, the hodgepodge language used by travellers in the Nevernever, mother tongue to none, spoken by millions. I picked my words carefully.

"So Flin," I said, "how's the family? I heard your uncle was injured by a dingonek."

He nodded as he looked at his cards, face otherwise impassive. "Much improved. The Lady Gwendolen has sent him a potent healing tonic."

Flin's uncle is Lord of the Bramble Marches and one of the more important people in Summer. He's also the noble employing Flin as a herald but I never got the impression he liked his nephew much.

"Nasty business," I said. "Who's giving you orders these days?" That might be pushing things but it was late in the night and we'd all been drinking, even if in Flin's case that meant a sparkling brew distilled from starlight, imported from the deep Nevernever were such things were possible. It wouldn't have worked on a more powerful sidhe (they simply couldn't release information in such an unbalanced fashion) but the chains of faerie power held Flin yet loosely.

"My Lady Aunt," said Flin.

"Your magic tutor?"

He nodded and then motioned at Arborax. "Do move along."

Arborax tooed-and-froed for a moment before throwing in $5, not a serious bet even by our table's feeble standards. Given his sizable spending last hand, I was betting on an act. It wasn't like he needed the money. He had a budget I could only dream of. Great Dragon's had deep pockets, even dead ones.

My hand looked like it might be promising (three Hearts, a Jack of Spades and a forlorn Three of Clubs) so I saw Arborax's bet, despite the fact that he could well have a good hand. Flin raised another $10. Adam put in the required $15 but didn't otherwise react. He was a conservative player and still learning the game. That was why we were only playing Five-card draw. Arborax ponied up the rest of the money but didn't push things further and neither did I.

"Three cards," said Arborax in his lilting Waytalk, and dropped that number on the table. Adam dealt him replacements from the deck.

"Two," I said, and gave away my Jack and Three. What I got back made me smile on the inside, another two Hearts. Flush.

"One," said Flin and tossed a card down.

While Adam dealt himself two cards, I turned to the rest of the table. "Has anyone else had problems with dingoneks?"

The expression on Arborax's face said more than words could have, and his heavy equine nose cast a deep shadow as he scowled. Even Adam's ember-red eyes darkened.

"Horrible things," said Arborax. "I wouldn't be surprised if the Dragon Princes ride forth against them. There have been attacks upon our protectorates."

The Dragon Princes were the high nobility of the Towering Mountains, the regional power Arborax called home. Each was a match for a White Council wizard, magically speaking, and rode a small-d dragon steed. They were deadly and not the sort of people anyone sensible wanted to face in a fight. I sure as hell didn't.

"And the White Council?" said Flin. A faint smile tickled the edge of his lips on his too-pretty face.

I had to frown at that but these things involved give and take. "We're worried," I said honestly. There had been much muttering back in Edinburgh, at least among those members who kept an eye on the Nevernever, and my orders to find out what was going on were fairly unambiguous. "We don't have extensive Nevernever holdings but if they should breach the Faerie border they could cross over to Earth itself. That would be bad."

"This one saw the Valley two days past," said Adam in a voice like grinding boulders. It was quite possibly his longest speech of the night.

Like a flipping switch, Adam was the centre of attention. Flin asked, "Where?"

"Three score leagues off the Sea of Monsters."

That was close, far too close. The Valley (or as I liked to call it The Land Time Took Up Drinking to Forget) was the nesting site for the dingoneks and other creatures too, chipekwes, jago-ninis, inkanyambas, ngoubous and God only knew what else. It was a migratory piece of Nevernever geography. According to what records I'd been able to scrounge up, it had last been active over a century ago, when it ravaged the Congo region of Africa, killing people, animals and spirits with equal blood-lust. It had spent the time since dormant in the deep Nevernever, those strange but wonder filled lands far from Earth, where metaphor could be as real as stone and the basic building blocks of reality began to fail. That it would come this close was a bad sign.

It was also very valuable information, and almost made tonight worth it by itself. As I've said before I'm an Ordained Herald for the White Council. That means I'm a messenger. I can walk safely into the heart of Winter if I have the right missive in my hands, secure in the knowledge that the Unseelie Accords make my person sacrosanct, at least in theory. That's true but it is also only part of the truth. The full truth is that I'm also a spy, an agent sent out of gather information and talk to people.

It's not even some terrible secret. We all are, Flin, Arborax, and even Adam, for all that he probably doesn't think of it in exactly those terms. Herald and spy, message-carrying and espionage: they always have and probably always will go together. You foster contacts, make friends, become proficient at getting places in a hurry and keep your eyes open. You just don't talk about it.

The silence hung for three long seconds before Arborax dropped two $10 notes on the table. I matched it and raised five. Flin saw the $25 bet but didn't increase it. Adam folded. Arborax called and I did the same.

"Let's see some cards." I dropped my hand and smiled a smile which almost split my face. "Hearts flush."

Flin cursed as he dropped his own Straight, and Arborax just frowned as his own Three of a Kind was beaten.

"Come to papa," I said as I reached for my winnings. I never got the chance. A man covered in blood staggered through the door and collapsed almost at my feet.

Perhaps I should take a moment to describe where we were. How many places, after all, could a Summer sidhe, a golem, a dragonized human and a White Council wizard meet to drink, play cards and engage in a little light espionage on the side? Well in practice there are quite a few such places but in this case it was the Hall of Hermes, the demesne of that once great god located deep in the Nevernever. As near as anyone can tell, Hermes retreated to his Hall one thousand five hundred years ago and went inactive shortly after. He's still there, even today, sitting at the head of the room on his throne, skin gone grey and body lifeless. You get use to it. There's even a book on when or if he'll eventually wake up. I'm not part of it; it's sucker money.

What I'm trying to get at is this: the Hall of Hermes is not the kind of place random people just stagger into. Still, the stranger did exactly that.

I dropped to my knees at once, game forgotten.

Blood covered the man. It stained the ragged remains of his clothes and matted his hair. Even as I watched it oozed from the deep wounds cut into his flesh. In fact there was only one thing which could be truly said to still be intact, and my eyes opened wide when I saw it: a dispatch bag, one of the heavily enchanted carrying cases given to Ordained Heralds of the White Council. Just like the one I had.

I rolled the figure over, blood staining my hands, and looked down at his face.

"Burkwater!" I said as the features registered through the injuries. He was a Herald. No, not just a Herald. He was the Herald, the best of us. He'd done amazing things, probed the depths of the Nevernever in ways seldom seen. He'd also been away on a mission since before the end of the Red Court War, two months before.

"Wizard Archdale," he said in Latin, his voice made barely comprehensible by random stops and starts. His eyes swam in and out of focus.

I scanned his injuries almost without thinking. They were bad, very bad and equally lethal. It was a miracle he made it this far. For all that Water Magic was theoretically one of my strengths, they were well beyond what I could hope to heal. Still, I had to try; I had to do something. Leaving a fellow Wizard and Herald to die on the ground was unthinkable.

"Stay strong, Burkwater," I said, willing with all my mind for it to be so. "I'm going to do what I can."

His hand shot out and grabbed mine. For all that he was dying, his grip was like iron. "The pouch," he said. "Get— Get the pouch to the Council." His eyes swam in and out of focus. "The war— Vital for the..."

With more effort than I really should have needed, I wrenched my hand free. "You can give it to them yourself."

His flesh was hot, feverish, but I didn't have time for that. I pulled a piece of white chalk from one of my coat's many pockets and began drawing on the ground.

Healing is more or less the definition of a complicated spell and that means a circle. I drew it in a great sweeping arc around where I knelt, a single unbroken line. Next came the pentacle, a five-pointed star inside my circle, the very symbol of magic under human control. Inside the five outer segments, I sketched runes and sigils, aids which would take some of the strain off me. Finally I began searching for ritual foci. They were perhaps the most important part of all, anchoring the pentacle's elemental points and making it truly potent.

I set my drink from the table down at the water point; intoxicating water, it might be, but I couldn't be picky. Next came fire and one of my pockets offered up a nightlight candle. Earth came after that, and I set down a thumbnail sized quartz crystal, cut from its natural form but using only human muscle and simple tools. Wind followed earth and I drew my air-knife from my belt. I used it for my air evocation and it was well aligned with such energies. That just left one last element, the master point which bound all the others.

"Spirit," I said to myself as I patted pockets. "Need something for spirit."

"Here," said Flin and threw me his glowing coin, the captured first laugh of an orphan child. Couldn't get much more spirit than that. I caught it out of the air and sent him a thankful smile.

It was time to begin. I placed the coin at the appropriate point and sat myself at the very centre of the circle, inside the pentagon formed by my pentagram. It was here that I would control my spell, the magical heart of all I aimed to work. With only three deep breaths for preparation, I closed my eyes and reached out with my mystical senses.

For a big spell like this I needed energy, lots and lots of energy; the Hall of Hermes shone with just that. In my mind's eye I could feel my friends standing in a half circle, watching me intently. I could feel the barman behind his bar. I could feel the group of owl spirits who sat at the table next along from ours. I could feel the dozen other messengers who filled the room. And, of course, I could feel the great god himself, sitting upon his throne. Dead or alive, I didn't care. All I knew was that waves of power rolled off Hermes, infusing the Hall, sustaining it and giving it form, purpose and substance.

I grabbed as much of that power as I could and clutched it to me, drinking it in until my mind burned and my brain threatened to dribble out my ears. Once I reached that point, I took one more gasping breath, reeled in my senses and opened my eyes.

Holding the energy skewed my vision, almost like being drunk. The chalk lines of my circle, pentacle and runes seemed to twist and turn as they sprawled in all directions. I gritted my teeth and forced them to make sense with pure will power. They resolved, order arising from chaos, and I saw what to do. I reached out with my hand and touched the runic mark for will. There was potential there, a bubble in my mystical senses, like a distorted piece of plastic just waiting for a single nudge to jump back into shape. I gave it exactly that. In my mind I pared off a tiny charge from the energy I held and shoved it out. My circle cracked like a misfiring car and energy whirled through it.

The circle, pentagram, ritual foci and runes all thumbed with power, but even so it was the barest of bare bones. A ritual of this scale really needed extensive preparations. It needed more foci, items for mind, body, heart, and the five senses at least. The area needed to be ritually cleansed. I needed to be ritually cleansed, purified waters to wash clean my body and meditative tranquility to bring my mind into perfect laser-like focus.

It didn't matter. There was no choice.

The spell came together in my mind, supported by the pentacle and runes, and held in place by the circle. Even with such aids, the scale of my task seemed insurmountable. Healing is hard, very hard. As a rule of thumb, you need the same level of biological knowledge to heal with magic as you would through purely mundane means. I don't have that level of knowledge; few people do. What I did have was the ability to cheat.

I fed power into the spell, a slow dribble. Each drop of energy forged a link between my body and the proxy-Burkwater held in my mind, a magical construct formed of my will and his blood, red on my hands. Magically speaking it was him, or would be once I broke my circle and let the energies loose on the wider world.

And that was my cheat: thaumaturgy, the ritual connection between two objects. My body was hale and hearty and his was injured. Force the state of one on the other, mine onto his, as above, so below. My wizard instincts said it should be possible. My common sense screamed that I was going to kill myself. I just had to hope the first voice and not the second was correct.

Time passed, and each moment was an agony as I simultaneously fought to contain the energy I held and work it into my spell. By the thirty-second mark my chest ached and every breath was a battle. By the one minute mark I was near delirious, only controlling the magic by the mental equivalent of finger tips. But I held on. Each moment meant more thaumaturgic links. It made my spell that bit stronger. It gave Burkwater one more chance to live.

Then it was time.

With a flicker of will I broke my circle and released my spell. It slammed into Burkwater like a hammer. His body arched and a scream tore from his throat. The gashes in his flesh began to close and my own cheeks tingled in thaumaturgic sympathy.

It was working. I beamed. It was working!

The wounds in his chest began to close and he screamed all the louder. I tried to do what I could, guiding the spell, helping it with the few pieces of anatomical knowledge I did possess. That was when it all went wrong.

Burkwater's scream stopped, as sudden as a gunshot, and my spell tore loose from his body. Backlashing magical energy slammed into me and marked my body with bruises from head to toe, in perfect mimicry of Burkwater's wounds. It threw me out of my now inert circle and across the Hall. Burkwater collapsed to the ground, dead. I collapsed to the ground, alive but in pain.

For almost twenty seconds I hurt too much to move, but I knew I had to. Gritting my teeth and marshaling every ounce of will I possessed, I pushed myself up and looked around. Burkwater lay on the ground where my spell had flung him, body bereft of life. That wasn't unexpected, feared, yes, but even as I lay on the ground I knew it to be true. No, what struck me was that his dispatch bag was gone and so was Flin.

My first reaction was incredulity. Dispatch bags are created by the Senior Counsel. They're protected by powerful enchantments to prevent unauthorized access and linked to their companion Herald's body, mind and soul, inseparable. Even in death they could only be picked up by a true member of the White Council, meaning me.

My eyes flicked to Flin's coin were it lay forgotten inside the broken circle and then opened wide. "An open debt!" I said aloud, back in Waytalk again, then swore. In accepting the coin I'd created a debt between Flin and I, and he'd used that to take my place in the eyes of the dispatch bag's enchantments. It was more magic than I thought Flin capable of.

"Damn damn damn," I said as I pushed myself fully upright. "That rat bastard. Never trust a fairy. Which way?"

Arborax gave me a commiserative smile and pointed to one of the four doors. For all that he was my friend, he wouldn't interfere in something like this and neither would Adem. This was a private matter between the White Council and the Summer Court. This was spy business.

"Take the body into a back room and put a circle around it," I said to Adam and Arborax as I snatched up the ritual objects from the failed ritual. I'm not ashamed to admit I felt a lot better with my air-dagger on hand again. "I'll own you one."

Adam nodded his ponderous head. That much he could do. Arborax likewise indicated his assent.

With that, I snatched up Flin's mostly empty glass off the table and dashed out the door.

* * *

Among Hermes' many accolades is God of Crossroads so it should come as no surprise to anyone that four great roads spilled away from his Hall. They were wide and thick, in the roman style, and boundary stones sat along their lengths, defining and limiting them. That last was very important in the Nevernever. Without the stones, the roads would shrink and expand at whims all their own.

I stared down the one Arborax had indicated. Ghostly transparent figures walked the road, echoes of travellers past and possibly even future. They moved in both directions in almost uncountable numbers, from the infinite distance to right before me. Flin was not among them. He was either hiding himself or, more likely, had jumped off at some point. This was fast getting complicated but I'd feared for the worst and planned accordingly.

From around my neck I drew my spirit-compass, an enchanted item I'd made using equal parts research and gut-instinct, and a disproportionate investment of money. A dozen needles sat on its face, each made from a different metal, and an interlocking network of dials ran around the edge.

With swift sure movements, I aligned the dials, selecting the sigils for 'Find', 'Fae' and 'Individual'. I touched Flin's glass to the last mark and forged a thaumaturgic link using my will. Then I hit the metaphorical go button.

The compass buzzed and the needles spun, aligning in ways which only made sense to someone learned in the mysteries of the Nevernever. Fortunately that included me. Moving with all the speed I possessed, I took off after Flin.

He'd left the road only a hundred meters along its length, travelling into a thicket of black, twisted trees. The shadows which lurked at the thicket's heart looked especially deep. At any other time I would've gone around, found another way, but I didn't have the luxury of restraint. I tore into them, compass clutched against my chest, my other hand holding my air-dagger.

Twisting black branches blocked my path and tore at my clothes but I ducked and dived between them. A squirrel with burning red eyes and tiny fangs took one look at me before scampering away. Magic tingled against my wizard senses, like changing air pressure, but I'd expected that too. This path had led Flin from Hermes' realm to somewhere else. It would take me there too.

I emerged from the trees into a basalt world. Hexagonal columns the size of skyscrapers towered above me and disappeared away in all directions, with narrow gaps in between. Hazy giants, somehow even bigger than the columns, walked among them, but all were a long way off. In the extreme distance I could just see the sea, a narrow slash of gray-blue. In between it and me was the running figure of Flin, tall, fluid and full of sidhe grace. He was also running faster than I could ever hope too.

Sometimes the unfairness of the universe really got to me.

Flin was of the sidhe, one of the lords of Faerie. That meant he was downright superhuman when it came to physical things. If I wanted to catch him, I'd need to think smart. Luckily I am a wizard.

The closest basalt pillar seemed to grow even bigger as I strode towards it. As I did, I returned my compass to around my neck, slip my air-dagger back into its sheath and drew it's never twin.

My never-knife is a work of art. It has a seven-inch blade and a five-inch handle, and an interlocking network of runes and sigils cover every inch of both. I've bathed it in the elemental streams of the deep Nevernever, had it blessed by spirits of travel and freedom and spent over a year slowly aligning its energies to mine. In short, it's the Rolls-Royce of Nevernever travel. Despite all that, I was pleasantly surprised when it held up well as I carved a two foot wide circle on the basalt face of the pillar.

"Here goes nothing," I said as I closed my eyes and placed my left hand in the circle. It closed with a snap as I channelled a spark of energy into it. Once it was steady, I a pointed my knife at the ground and spoke my spell. "Anapiesma!"

The whiplash movement of energy needed for evocation always leaves me feeling like a large part of my chest has been ripped out, but it is useful. For a brief moment the ground disappeared beneath my feet but it returned almost as quick.

When I opened my eyes it was to a pitch-black cave. Despite that, I could see fine. What, after all, was the point of creating a dark, scary place if no one could see all the work you put into the details?

My hand was plastered against a large stalactite and my ritual circle smoldered there. Water dripped down too close walls and invisible eyes watched me from the far shadows, which concealed a lot more than the rest of the phantasmal dark.

"Right, no pressure," I said to myself as I strode forward, counting stalactites. Flin had been about twenty pillars ahead of me. Add five more to be safe and you got...

"Twenty five," I said and tapped the pillar.

Something chittered just out of sight but I didn't have time. If it came at me my best defence would be the plan I was already enacting. It was time to realm shift again.

Using my never-knife, I carved another two foot circle into the stalagmite, a bit less uniform than last time but I couldn't afford to be picky. That done, I touched the centre, closed it with a flicker of will and pointed my knife straight up in the air. "Anapiesma!"

Transition was worse the second time. I reappeared in the basalt world, breathing heavily, my knees shaking. But I'd made it and that was the important thing. Bright sunlight shone from above and booted feet struck stone from just around the corner. Flin. Despite that I really wanted to curl up and have a rest, I prepared myself for a fight.

Tip number one for fighting faeries. Don't. Tip number two, with a few exceptions they are physical enough that brute force is a viable strategy.

In a single swift motion, I drew my air-dagger, moved around the pillar and stepped right into Flin's path.

"Aema!"

Wind tore from my air-dagger, a hurricane of blunt force. This focus was a cruder tool than my never-knife but that had its advantages. It blew Flin off his feet. He smashed into the ground, rolled and came to a skidding stop.

Magic on that scale always hits me hard, but I'd expected the drain and kept my feet. With outwardly sure steps I advanced, hiding my growing weakness. "Give it back, Flin." He clutched the dispatch bag to his chest.

He tried to roll to his feet but I had no intention of letting that happen. With a swipe of my dagger, I called another wind. "Aema!"

It was weaker this time, both because I had less to give and to conserve my strength, but it was still enough. Wind caught Flin mid roll and flung him through the air, right into one of the pentagonal basalt pillars. There he stayed, ass above head, having learned his lesson.

"Hand it over."

Flin smiled at me from the ground, a cheeky expression on his upside down face, like a child caught sneaking a cookie before dinner. It was only a little spoiled by the blood running down his face.

"Why Danny," he said, "what a surprise. Sorry to run off from our game but I have pressing business to take care of."

"Cut the games," I said. "That—" I pointed with my air-dagger "—is White Council property."

"Once was, once was," said Flin. "Now it is a treasure of the Summer Court of the Sidhe."

"It wasn't yours to take."

"Ah," he said and his smile was the cat who'd got the cream, "but it was yours to give."

"Give it back."

He looked at me, right in the eye. "No."

And that was the most annoying thing. As these things were judged in the Nevernever, he could well be in the right. In accepting his coin, I'd created a debt that let him step in and take my place were the satchel was concerned. If I took it back by force, a formal complaint from his uncle could find me in the wrong. There was probably enough doubt that I could get away with demanding a dual, and take the bag as a prize if I won, but I really didn't want to do that. If for no other reason, the choice of weapon would be his and he could take me apart hand-to-hand. For another he was my friend, even if I wasn't feeling very friendly right that moment. It was time for another track.

"You'll never get it open," I said.

"Oh I wouldn't be so sure," said Flin. "Summer has many people wise in the ways of such things. Even if I can't, I'm sure your masters would pay a handsome ransom for its return."

That was true. "If it's a ransom you want, come with me. I'll promise you right now, we'll pay well." And it would probably come right out of my salary.

As Flin considered my offer, I sensed movement behind me. A too-long shadow spilled out from one of the pillars and I had a thought, a very bad thought.

"Flin," I said, trying to keep calm. Panic could tip it off. "Where are we?"

"Hum, where? The Giant's Causeway of course."

Ah. "And that's the Sea of Monsters over there."

"Correct, but why should that..."

I could see the realization dawn on his face even upside down. The Sea of Monsters... Where Adam had seen the Valley only two days before. Even those forty-eight hours could mean very little; time was strange in the Nevernever.

Trying to keep calm I turned and saw it, a dingonek, stalking out from the shadows. It was a sight fit to chill my blood.

"Truce?" I said, almost under my breath. Flin heard and agreed all the same.

Let me take a moment to describe a dingonek. Start with the lean form of a hunting cat, a malk, maybe, or a jaguar. Next scale it up to eighteen feet long. Once you've got the size right, add the armoured skin of a scaly anteater, the striking tail of a scorpion, a pair of sabretooth fangs and the horn of a rhino, sharpened to a needle point. Sounds bad, right? Well it's worse. That skin, it can take a point-blank shot from a high-powered rifle, the poison from its tail will eat through most magical defences and on the charge, its horn can do a passable imitation of an unstoppable force. And that didn't even touch upon its overt magical abilities: the manipulation of shadow and still water. It could slink through the Nevernever like nobody's business. My trick with the pillars wouldn't help me with this; the dingonek would only follow.

"Could you reach Earth from here?" said Flin, speaking low. From the corner of my eye, I could see he was now the right way up.

I shook my head, not taking my gaze from the stalking dingonek. "Not from this deep in the Nevernever. If I had time to perform a ritual, maybe. Could you hold it off for half an hour?"

It was Flin's turn to shake his head.

"What about a veil?" I said. The inhabitants of Faerie were generally good at such thing but I'd never seen Flin do more than parlor trick glamoury. "Could you make us invisible?"

"Not against this beast's eyes," he said. "They are not a talent of mine."

"One more thing," I said, and licked my lips. Now wasn't the right time but there might not be a better one. "Your uncle, did he win his fight with the dingonek."

"Oh yes," said Flin as he levered himself fully upright. "Stabbed it right through the eye with his spear. It was dead in thirty seconds."

"And it still injured him badly?"

"Thirty seconds is a lot of time."

I readied my will. The dingonek charged. "Dikhoto!"

If the spell I'd used against Flin was a battering wind, this was a cutting one. Blades of sharpened air slashed at the dingonek's face. They tore deep gashes but didn't penetrate the armoured skin to the soft tissue beneath.

The dingonek roared, the sound a cross between a lion and a snake, and re-angled its charge towards me, horn lowered. Sparks shot up from where its claws dug into the basalt floor.

My limbs felt like lead (too much magic with no chance to rest) but I clenched my jaw, summoned up my strength and threw myself to the side. The dingonek tore past, then Flin was there, his hands up raised. Summer Fire appeared within them and he flung it out, unfocused blasts which burst like hand grenades against the dingonek's armoured hide.

It let loose another cry and whipped around, scorpion tail flung out like a counterweight. I attacked again, this time with a single air blade, launched right at the beast's left eye. The effort left me staggered and seeing double, but brought results. The eye almost exploded and the dingonek scrambled as it back-pedalled, tail rising to strike anyone attempting to close. The shadows under its belly deepened and then rose up, distorting its image like a poor quality veil.

"It's repositioning, not retreating," said Flin. Again he conjured Summer Fire, and this time it was blinding white. The shadows around the dingonek disappeared, like cobwebs to a blowtorch, but so did the dingonek itself.

"Illusion," I said, then swore. I turned a circle, scanning for danger. "Come here, Flin." From my jacket I plucked another piece of chalk (this one neon green) and tossed it to the ground. Once Flin was at my side, I used my foot to pull it in a circle around us both. When done, I closed it and held out a hand. "Mutual survival says you should help."

"But of course." The smile was slightly mocking. The ability of Summer sidhe to be annoyingly superior even in the face of death never ceases to amaze and irritate me.

Flin took my left hand and channelled his power: the magic of Summer. It flowed into me, a seemingly infinite stream of life, vitality and fire. It was the magic that let weeds shatter stone. It was the magic that let life triumph in even the harshest environments. It was the magic which fuelled the fury of the classical Greek hero. It was wondrous — the siren song of the Nevernever, distilled and given life and form — and even as I held it, it was healing me, restoring my stocks of energy and unfogging my mind. I wanted nothing as much as to hold and hoard it forever but my life was on the line. With gritted teeth I thrust it into the circle.

A throbbing curtain of green and red fire roared up around us. Fern like patterns rolled across its surface and its power pressed against my senses. The loss of Summer's power left me feeling hollow but still much improved on before.

"Pretty," said Flin. "Do you do parties?"

"Shut up, Flin."

The dingonek was still out there somewhere. I scanned for it and saw something else: the dispatch bag, lying forgotten against the basalt pillar. Flin must have abandoned it to save his life, just like a faerie. It was while my attention was thus diverted that the beast struck.

Intellectually I knew the scorpion sting of a dingonek could eat through most magical defences. That was a potent ability but I only had a general idea of what it meant. My book learning didn't live up to the truth.

The stinger slammed into my circle on an arc which would have ended in my chest. Shatter lines of black energy speared out from the impact point but that was only the outwards manifestation of an entirely different problem. Raw focused animal will speared through my circle, up the magical connection which bound it to me and into my skull.

I screamed and stumbled back, the dingonek's attack doing to my mind what its claws would happily do to my body. In a very real sense a Wizard's will is his magic and I'm nothing to write home about in terms of strength. It would tear me to shreds.

On instinct, I broke the connection binding me to the circle. That didn't cause the circle to instantly fail but without me to support and sustain it, it wouldn't have a hope of withstanding the attack being levelled against it. Already the wall of energy was degrading. The black shatter lines attacked every inch, and it wouldn't last long. We didn't have minutes left; we had seconds.

"Flin," I said as I pushed myself back up. "We need to split up. I'll realm shift you down, deeper into the Nevernever. I go up, back towards Earth. It can only chase one of us and if I can work this circle right, it might not realise either of us are gone until it's too late."

For a brief moment I saw something which might have been concern on his face but I was probably imagining it. Only fools force human qualities on the sidhe, fools and men who'd soon be working off hundred year debts in drudge servitude. He was probably just worried about the debt he would owe me if by some angel-wrought miracle we both survived.

"Do it," he said.

"Right."

Moving as fast as I could, I drew my never-knife and scored a second circle inside the first. Outside the dingonek continued its assault, coming closer and closer to destroying the outer circle for all that it was formed of wizard magic and Summer fire both.

"Hand inside and seal," I said and when Flin had done that, I looked at him, for possibly the last time. He might have tricked me and stole the dispatch bag but expecting otherwise from the Fae was like expecting water to be dry. He was still my friend. "Good luck. You'll probably appear in an underground cave, full of stalactites. There's something there, in the true dark, so move swiftly and escape."

He nodded and I readied my never-knife, the tip pointed towards the ground at Flin's feet.

"Good luck, Daniel Archdale," he said and I could feel the tingle of my true name in those words, or two thirds of it anyway.

I gave him a tight smile and said one word: "Anapiesma!"

Flin disappeared in a flash of purple light and I staggered on my feet, feeling like a large chunk of my chest had been scooped out, possibly by an ice cream scoop. In the same moment, the dingonek smashed through the outer circle. My weakness was all that saved me. The beast's scorpion tail slammed through the air where I'd been but I was several feet to the left, wobbling to stay upright.

It whipped around and I didn't even attempt magic, just threw myself to the side again. It pounced, mouth open, saber-fangs gleaming with spittle, and clipped me on the shoulder. I crashed to the hard ground. The only thing keeping me alive at this point was luck. It was faster than me, faster than a sidhe even, and I was only a rapidly tiring wizard.

From where I lay I stabbed out with my air-dagger and thrust all the energy I could grab into a spell. "Aema!"

It was a buffeting wind this time, a hurricane condensed down into a battering ram only a half-dozen feet across. The spell caught the dingonek in the side and threw it clear, right into one of the giant basalt pillars. I'd like to say there was a sickening crunch of broken bones but it barely seemed to feel the impact. It landed like a cat, turned and hiss-roared at me, shadows writhing around its limbs, body and head.

I stabbed out again with my air-dagger, a blade of wind blasting from the blade's edge. It streaked right towards the dingonek's remaining eye, but the dingonek sensed it coming. There was a flash of shadow and my air-blade shot off to the side, where it cut a deep wound in the nearest basalt pillar. Tail slashing from side to side, the dingonek advanced.

My weariness was bone deep, as bad as it had ever been. The dingonek glared at me, its remaining eye filled with animal cunning. It had already learnt to deflect my wind attacks and they were my main form of offensive evocations, since I had little talent with fire. If I wanted to win this fight I would need to do something it didn't expect. I had the perfect trick.

I'm not good at veils (my spirit evocations are too tied with the Nevernever) but that's only a problem if you come at all problems from the same angle. Even as the dingonek advanced I slipped my air-dagger back into its sheath and drew my never-knife, holding it in both hands. I gathered energy and said, "Thrauo!"

My will flashed out, twisting local Never-space, and the universe shattered at my command. It became a dozen constantly spinning mirrors, throwing splintered reflections in a hundred different directions. My head was a confused mess as I levered myself up, only partially from exhaustion. The dozen dingoneks looked only slightly better. Their lips pulled back and their remaining eyes darted wildly. Already the mirrors were disintegrating, fraying at the edges, becoming opaque, but they might give me enough time.

I swayed on my feet, dropped my never-knife and just managed to draw and raise my air-dagger one last time. This spell was not a one way veil. It scrambled all light, mine and the dingonek's both. The only difference was that I knew the secret; I knew the pattern and what to watch for.

"One," I muttered to myself as I saw my back spinning past. That was the signal to start counting.

"Two." This time it was a reversed version of my face.

"Three." For one perfect moment, all the mirrors showed true. I pointed my dagger right at the dingonek's already ruined left eye, gathered every ounce of my will, bound it as tightly as I could, made the slight alteration I wanted and let it fly. "Aema!"

The wind ripped the dagger from my hand, whipping it forward as fast as any bullet. It slashed through the intervening air, straight and true, and right into the dingonek's brain. I collapsed forward, all my muscles numb. The very moment my limp body touched the basalt floor, the dingonek went crazy.

A hundred shattered images showed the dingonek attacking invisible enemies on all sides. It slashed, bit, clawed and struck with its horn. Its scorpion tail stabbed again and again, beating holes in the ground. Shadows spun like a whirlwind, trying to do God only knew what. For thirty seconds it attacked in mindless frenzy, then it stopped, just stopped, tail frozen mid lunge, mouth open and sabre-tooth fangs bare. The next second its limp body fell to the ground, dead. I was scarcely in better condition.

For almost ten minutes I couldn't move. Irons chains bound every cell in my body to the ground. Finally, though, my utter exhaustion started to fade. Gradually, bit by bit, piece by piece, I felt my reserves rebuilding themselves. I wouldn't be fully mended for a while (not until I ate well and slept better) but it would do for now.

Muscles groaning, I swept up my never-knife and pushed myself upright. The dingonek was definitely dead. I could feel its escaping energies with my mystical senses, the potent power it had held so close in life now released in death. In better times I would have tried to harvest as least some of the windfall but attempting such a ritual now would surely kill me. Instead I stooped only to retrieve my air-dagger and turned my mind to other things. I needed to save my strength for my return to White Council territory.

And on that note...

Burkwater's despatch bag still lay abandoned were Flin had left it. I hobbled towards it and picked it up. The simple cloth buzzed against my fingers. It was protected against intrusion, defended by enchantments laid down by some of the most powerful wizards currently alive. Only eight people could open it and one of those was dead. Wizard Burkwater, its former master, was the latter and the former were the seven members of the Senior Council. That didn't mean I couldn't give it a good feel, though.

My questing hands scouted the shapes concealed by the cloth. There was something bulky in it and the heft spoke of some substantial weight, like a large lump of stone or metal. That was all I could tell, though. Squeezing it as small as I could, I shoved it into my despatch bag, crumpling a couple of unimportant missives in the process. With that done, I breathed a sigh of relief. While inside my dispatch bag my prize was safe, and my task became a lot easier. It also meant I could turn my attention fully to escape.

The Giant's Causeway stretched away in all directions, a basalt world of hazy giants and colossal hexagonal pillars the size of skyscrapers. It seemed to go on forever and it might well do so. In the Nevernever shear area is worthless (a mere plaything for anything with power to enforce their will) but land is something else entirely. Land is what area happens in and there are always ways in and out, boarders, gateways, and bolt-holes wrought in ages past, places where Nevernever realms overlap and interact.

I turned a slow circle, searching for anything which might indicate such a place. With luck I'd be able to find the black trees I'd used to arrive and from there travel to the Hall of Hermes, but nothing was ever certain in the Nevernever. Fortune was with me and I did see the trees, twenty-five pillars away, just where they should be, but I also saw something else. Blocking me from the Sea of Monsters was a rift in the world, a v-shaped opening which led to a dense jungle.

My blood ran cold.

It led to the Valley, the Land Time Took Up Drinking To Forget.

My hands shook as I pulled a collapsible telescope from one of my pockets and raised it to my eye. It was a cheap thing, only a few steps above Christmas cracker level, but it helped some. The Valley grew larger and if anything my blood ran colder.

Dozens upon dozens of dingoneks moved in and out of the rift. The ones heading out disappeared in flares of shadow but it was the ones who returned which worried me. They carried bodies in their teeth, the physical corpses of fae, fluttering spirit forms and the remains of other stranger things, unknown outside the Nevernever.

Bodies and beasts both disappeared into the Valley, a place of dense jungle trees cast in the deepest greens. I could just spy other things there too, the gigantic neck and head of a jago-nini, the brilliant red frill of a ngoubou.

I turned and ran.


	2. Chapter 2

_The Dresden Files is copyright Jim Butcher. This story is licensed under the Creative Commons as derivative, noncommercial fiction._

* * *

No journey through the Nevernever can ever be said to be uneventful — and still less so when you forge your own path, like I do, rather than take an established Way — but I made it through unscathed and without meeting any more dingoneks. From my perspective it took a little over three hours but time can be fickle in the spirit world. Still, I think I avoided any major patches of temporal slippage.

The Nevernever entrance to the Hidden Halls of Edinburgh is located in an evergreen clearing, walled in on all sides by trees save for a narrow path. It's within spitting distance of Winter but the land it stands on is White Council through and through, seeded to us centuries ago and cemented with blood, will and power. The door itself is located in a high mound of earth, covered with vines and stuck through with stones. It's made from three huge monoliths, which wouldn't have looked out-of-place at Stonehenge (and indeed that is exactly where they came from, according to some of the older documents stored in the vaults).

Four Wardens stood guard upon the entrance and three of them jumped when I strode out of the treeline. Most wizards take the path; I'm not most wizards.

"Wardens," I said with a bob of my head. Three of the four were young like me but the leader was of the older sort, crusty and formal. His name was Abendroth if I remembered correctly, a dour wizard of German stock. He got on well with my old Master, Madam Maxwell.

"Wizard Archdale," said Abendroth in clipped Latin, the official language of the White Council. "You are aware of the regulations for approaching this door. We could well have attacked before realizing your true nature."

"I've been doing this for years," I said in the same tongue, then dropped into English as I turned to smile at the Warden closest to me. "What's the date, Smyth?"

Smyth smiled back at me, the expression almost splitting her round face. We'd been the same age for most of our adolescence but I was pulling ahead now, at around twenty-three to her twenty-one. Don't ask; temporal weirdness is a fact of life for Heralds who deal with the Nevernever. Despite all that, we still saw each other enough to keep in touch. "Still haven't learned to keep a calendar, Danny?" she said.

"I'll do so as soon as you find me one which'll work in the Nevernever," I said back but this wasn't really the time for such things. "Smyth, this is serious. I've got bad news."

The Red Court War forced many of us to grow up fast and Smyth quickly picked up on my expression. "December 7th. What's wrong?"

December 7th? That was a small relief. It meant I'd only been gone a day. My news was bad enough without making it too late to act upon.

"Burkwater is dead," I said, back in Latin again; this wasn't small talk. Strangely it was Abendroth, the older more experienced veteran, who reacted the worst to the news, blanching, the colour draining from his face. I continued on anyway. "And the Valley is growing closer every day. Do you know what that is?"

The three younger wizards shook their heads (ah, the blessing of ignorance) but Abendroth said, "I think you better go inside Wizard Archdale. Do you need an escort? The Toulon raid has people panicked but your news must be heard."

"Toulon raid?" I said, then shook my head. "No, I'll ask inside." Ancient Mai would have better information anyway. "And, no, I don't need an escort. I'm good at getting myself notice, and I really must go. Mai will skin me alive if I don't report promptly." I was sure the rumor that she used the skins of failed Heralds for spell paper was false but, well, you could never be too sure.

It was the Wardens turn to nod to me and I strode past them, through the door and back to Earth.

Describe the transition? Imagine you have an extra sense. It's constantly telling you that everything is alive, that it is wonderful and that you are part of it. Now imagine that sense flicks off like a light-bulb. That is what being on Earth is like to me. It's really not my home.

The halls of the White Council's headquarters thronged with people as I pushed my way through. Wardens were everywhere, dressed and ready for battle. More worrying were the large number of people I knew weren't Wardens dressed the same. That only happened when bad things went down, like a major Red Court attack. That was the past, though. The War had ended almost two months before, the entire Court wiped out by the traitor Dresden after he sold his soul to Winter.

A pair of wardhounds guarded the Intelligence Office, large gray-green stone canines, shaped like Chinese temple dogs. They stared at me as I passed but didn't move to intercept.

Inside the office was chaos. People were everywhere, messengers, wardens and wizards. They pulled files from draws, compared maps on the large stone tables and muttered to each other in hushed voices, the cumulative effect of which was still rather loud.

I pushed my way forward through the tides of people, until I got to the invisible half meter line around Ancient Mai's desk. No magic enforced it but it was sacrosanct all the same; those who thought otherwise quickly learnt the error of their ways.

After perhaps ten seconds waiting, in which I tried to project my presence as strongly as possible, she looked up.

"Wizard Archdale," she said in Latin she'd probably learnt when the language was still spoken in the wider world, her paper-skin wrinkling. "I had not expected you for several days. Have you brought news of the Valley?"

"Yes," I said, "but that's secondary. Wizard Burkwater is dead. He died telling me to bring you his satchel." That said, I fished it out of my dispatch pouch and presented it to her.

Her eyes locked on it as if it were a poisonous viper. "The Lock Room," she said in a quiet voice, "now."

A plain door at the back of the Intelligence Office provided access to the Lock Room. Thirteen feet to a side, it was a perfect cube and powerful wards protected it from eavesdropping. Those wards flicked off as Ancient Mai pulled the door open and turned back on as soon as she closed it again, after we both were through. To my mystical senses they felt like a wall of static, completely blocking off the outside world.

Mai lowered herself into one of the room's chairs and said, "Who else knows?"

"He died at the Hall of Hermes," I said in reply after taking a seat myself, "so just about every supernatural power which cares enough to take an interest. I also told the wardens on the gate."

She took the dispatch pouch from my hands and I couldn't help notice that hers were shaking slightly. It didn't stop her flipping the lock and pulling back the flap. As a member of the Senior Council the bag's enchantments were programmed to grant her access.

I don't know what I expected to see. If not for the odd shape, I would have thought an important report, maybe detailing some imminent threat to the White Council. With the shape, I had no clue. Whatever ideas were forming in my mind, they didn't match what I saw.

The first thing revealed was a large crystal, opaque-white and about the size of one of my fists. It was held aloft by four golden monkeys, each statue facing a different direction. Below that was a golden plinth, marked with sigils and runes. Ancient Mai looked at it and paled. She muttered something in Chinese under her breath then looked up at me. "Tell me everything."

And I did. After a few years in Ancient Mai's service you learn it is possible to lie to her. After a few more you learn not to.

When I was done she looked even more worried. She pursed her paper-thin lips and tension hung around her eyes. "The thaumaturgic healing was poorly done," she said, though I could tell that comment wasn't going to be the meat of our conversation.

"Yes ma'am." I kept my face impassive.

"So risky a healing walks dangerously close to the First Law. Don't attempt such magic again."

"Yes ma'am." What else could I say?

Her face darkened and I could feel things moving in a more important direction. "I have a task for you Wizard Archdale, but first you must understand what we face." She paused. "The Valley, when I sent you out to investigate rumors of its return you performed preliminary research correct? What do you know?"

"Just what the records said, ma'am. It's a migratory piece of Nevernever geography. It's spent the last century in the deep Nevernever and it is home to a large number of powerful and savage creatures, mostly picked up from the places it attacks. The last time it stirred it ravaged the Congo region of Africa, killing most of the native sorcerers and their spirit allies."

Once more there was a pause. It stretched for an uncomfortable length of time before Ancient Mai broke it with a nod of her head. "That is correct but also deceptive. There are some things I won't tell you, can't. You are too young, too inexperienced. The knowledge of such things could mean your death in the spirit world. But I will tell you what I can, what you will need to succeed."

I nodded again, a knot of worry forming in my chest. As a herald and spy it wasn't unusual for things to be kept from me. I've carried more than a few sealed messages in my time and I've been ordered to gather quite a lot of seemingly meaningless information. If anything, it was that she was offering to explain at all that worried me.

"First," she said, "there is the matter of names. The Valley is a codename of sorts, a passable title we can use with outsiders. It is truly called Dane's Weapon."

"Dane as in the Third Merlin?" I said before I could stop myself.

She glared at me but nodded her head. "Don't interrupt. Centuries ago, Dane found his Weapon while exploring the spirit world and recognized it for what it was. He saw that it could be a potent tool for the White Council, a secret weapon to use when it was truly necessary. Do not underestimate the Weapon, Wizard Archdale. It is potent beyond the measure of wizard-kind. This is one of the many things I won't explain fully but know this: many powerful things have died in that valley and their power remains. When the Weapon kills, it absorbs some of its prey's power, all if the deed is done on the Valley floor, less if only the body is returned."

She paused to let me absorb what I'd been told. It explained some things: why the dingoneks were so powerful and why they'd been taking corpses back to the Valley. In other ways, though, it only raised more questions. After a few seconds, Mai continued.

"Dane also devised a way to, if not control it, at least guide the Weapon's power. This." She raised the crystal and its four golden monkeys. "This is the Weapon's Key. Think of it as a... I do not know the correct word. It can call the weapon and put it back to sleep. When active it forces the Weapon to move from where it was to where the Key is."

"A homing beacon," I ventured in English and she nodded.

"Inaccurate but it will suffice. I sent Wizard Burkwater to retrieve the Key in the closing days of the war. You will not be aware, but we were planning a major offensive. We did not believe the Vampires' overtures of peace were genuine. We were planning to strike as soon as they showed their hand. Towards that end we were gathering all our power, calling in century old debts, unearthing stocks of artifacts and deploying Dane's Weapon."

"But Dresden betrayed us because he wanted war not peace!" I said, the words flying off my tongue. My head was spinning. In only a few simple sentences Mai had upturned everything I thought I knew about the end of the war. The truth was known to everyone, but Mai shook her head all the same.

"Dresden knew of our true intentions. He was informed by the Merlin himself. The disagreement was over timing. Dresden wanted to strike immediately. There was a girl, captured by the Red Court, he wanted to rescue. The Senior Council wanted to wait. We felt that if we showed our hand too soon, our attack wouldn't be the decapitating blow it needed to be."

"But," I started to say; Mai cut me off.

"Dresden is not important to this," she said. The honorific Wizard was noted only by its absence. "Just know this, I sent Wizard Burkwater to retrieve the Key so we could deploy the Weapon against the Red Court's Nevernever holdings, but Burkwater did not return. Worse, rumors of the Weapon's activation began to reach us. That was when I sent you and others to investigate.

"Wizard Archdale, simply put the situation is this: the Weapon has moved from its slumbers in the depths of the spirit world. The Key will draw it here, towards the material world where it can do almost incalculable damage, as it did the last time we loosed it. It must be returned. You must return it."

"Me!" I said and withdrew back into my chair.

"Yes, you, Wizard Archdale. Only someone skilled in traveling the Nevernever can make the journey. Wizard Burkwater is dead; you are my choice."

"But Burkwater is," I said before stumbling over my tongue. "Was... He crossed the Infinite Sea for God's sake! He mastered the Cave of Dread, bargained with the Terminus Lords of the Moon Shadow and breached the Void Barrier. I've done none of that!"

"True," said Ancient Mai, nodding her head, "but wizards who have achieved even what you have are few and far between. Even among my Heralds how many truly venture off the beaten paths? There are wizards who have traveled deeper, yes, and ventured further but the few who I would trust with this are needed elsewhere."

I thought back to what Abendroth had said. "Toulon?"

"Yes," said Mai and for one moment I saw the weight of multiple centuries upon her. "The city has been attacked. All four resident White Council wizards are dead but Wizard Gagnon succeeded in sending a message first. He spoke of monsters, swarming from the sea. My best worldwalkers are leading a warden strike-force as we speak and the remainder are on standby for full mobilization. We cannot afford to let a new enemy gain a foothold against us, not so soon after the war. Now listen; I will explain what you must do."

Over the next twenty minutes Ancient Mai did exactly that. She covered the steps needed to reach the deep Nevernever home of Dane's Weapon and what I needed to do when I got there. She left me with one final warning. "Most of all, the other powers cannot learn the Weapon is ours. It must remain a natural hazard. If you must give an explanation or request aid your cover story shall be this: I have provided you with an artifact which may draw the 'Valley' back to the depths of the spirit world for a time, but it must be activated in a specific place to work."

Her piece said, she handed me back the Key and I slid it into my dispatch bag. It seemed a lot heavier than it did before.

"Now, I will provide you with a chit for anything you might need from our stores. You leave as soon as you think yourself able. If you require sleep take it. This mission is too important to fail."

I left the Lock Room and the Intelligence Office still unsure what to think or believe. There was one thing, though. I'd not only been given permission to venture deep into the Nevernever, I'd been ordered to do so. Even within the nigh-impregnable halls of mortal magic's greatest stronghold, I could hear its siren call echoing in my head.

* * *

Over the following hours I ate and slept in the small room I kept at Headquarters. But it was a short sleep and my dreams were filled with fitful things. I awoke early in the morning and prepared myself to leave. There were a few things I needed to do first, however.

I opened my wardrobe, moved my staff to one side and grabbed my backpack. That done, I headed down to stocks. There I wrangled with a giant of a man named Boris, but Ancient Mai's chit won the day and I came away with enough rations to more than see me through my mission. Foraging was normally possible in the near Earth Nevernever but I was going deep. When the rules of the universe started to break down, food could not be guaranteed. Boris also provided me with some fresh chalk, a twenty-pack of white candles and two new water canteens. Water was even more important than food and not to be assumed.

"Now be off with you," he said and I did as bid.

Back in my room I packed the last few things I'd need, checked the Key (it was still in my dispatch bag) and headed to the Nevernever gateway. Before the sun was even up in the real world, I stepped through the portal and truly lived again.

The Nevernever... I breathed deeply, drinking in everything I could. I could taste, smell and sense the crisp snow, the sap of the pines and the heavy naked earth. This was where I belonged. Every wizard has a first piece of magic, something which happened the first time their power bubbled over. I don't know what mine is for sure (my memories of that time are fragmented at best) but I can guess. I cut a hole between worlds, traveled from my mundane life to the lands of the Nevernever. That's where the Wardens found me, alone, hungry but not scared, never scared.

I breathed in again and this time I sensed something else, blood. There was blood on the snow. I turned to look. The metallic smell seemed to come from Winter. As luck would have it, that was also where Ancient Mai said I needed to go first. Most unpleasant.

Infiltrating another supernatural power's sovereign territory is technically an act of war, though in practice it is more likely to lead to a formal complaint and the payment of a fine. In this scenario I would of course be dead by this point. The Unseelie Court does not play nice with spies foolish enough to be caught. On the other hand I didn't have much choice.

Pulling my jacket tightly around myself, I stalked into the trees.

The part of Winter I found myself in tended towards pines and other evergreens, covered with snow. It was also empty, too empty. The lands of Faerie are among the most populated in all the Nevernever. There's a reason Winter is one of only three Nevernever nations categorized as a superpower by the White Council. There should have been Winter-aligned pixies in the trees, faerie-animals in the branches and perhaps a few of the bigger monsters stalking the ground, giant spiders, ice wolves and the like. Instead there was nothing.

I kept going and the smell of blood kept getting stronger. It was only a few miles until I found out why.

I crested a ridge and looked down on a rolling snow plain, framed on both sides by forested ridges. One end was taken up by the Valley, Dane's Weapon, a rift in space which led to a jungle world completely at odds with the snow which covered the rest of Winter. The other housed a large camp and in front of it was a huge Unseelie force. Battle was joined where the two met.

Dane's weapon attacked with thousands of dingoneks, fierce predatory monsters. The smallest I could see had to be at least ten feet long. The largest topped forty, a huge beast which sucked in shadows for a dozen meters in every direction.

Maeve, the Winter Lady, stood at the heart of the Unseelie force. I pulled out my collapsible telescope and took a closer look. She was clad in silvered mail from neck to toe. Her head was bare, however, and her raven black dreadlocks swung in the magical energies she was calling up. Her emerald eyes glittered with insane glee. In her right hand she held a bone wand and she gestured forward with it. Ice exploded from a dozen dingoneks, shards and spike spearing out of their flesh. She did it again and another dozen died, their dark red blood staining the snow. More came from the Weapon's mouth to replace them, an almost unstoppable tide.

Around Maeve danced twenty-seven sidhe lords and ladies, each an exquisite and terrible beauty. They spun in complex shapes and patterns, their ritual movements raising and channeling power to their mistress, a bonfire against my mystical senses. Next came a ring of faerie knights, tall and powerful sidhe, wearing the finest of Unseelie-wrought armor and carrying long, deadly blades. Beyond them was the rest of the army: cavalry regiments on faerie steeds, squads of blue skinned ogres, legions of gnomes holding wooden spears set with ice-heads, redcaps with small sharp knives, trolls, manticores, hags and other stranger things. They fought in tight formations, letting the waves of dingoneks crash against them only to be cut to pieces with bloodthirsty zeal. Outwards from the lines malk skirmishers dueled with the Weapon's forces and above huge bats circled. Between the two armies there were thousands of combatants of the field, tens of thousands.

"So many," I said under my breath.

"And yet it is only a fraction of Winter's forces, Wizard."

My heart beat fast and I twisted around, my hand going for my air-dagger. I didn't feel much better when I saw who it was but I put any thought of attacking out my mind.

Thursday Grundy stood in front of me, one hand holding her apple-wood staff, the other on her hip. She was beautiful, undeniably, but in a rugged, practical way. Her hammered copper hair was cut short and her clothes were of the kind that actually kept you warm, not merely attracted members of whatever sex was your particular preference. I was particularly impressed with the army surplus jacket.

"Thursday," I said and nodded my head respectfully.

No matter what she might look like I had to remind myself she was a faerie, or at least a close cousin. The Grundys comprised an independent great power depthwise of Faerie, one of the innumerable kingdoms which made up the Brambles. There were seven sisters and the least of them were more powerful than I. Thursday, among the strongest, would crush me with only slight effort.

"Wizard Archdale," she said back and returned my gesture. "I assume you have come to witness the battle. The other observers are this way."

Despite that not being the case, I nodded sagely and said, "Lead on."

Thursday led me back down the ridge and along its length to a small camp. It comprised a number of tents, in a dozen different styles, and low fires burned among them. They were tended by a handful of servants. We passed through the camp and back up to the ridge. There stood maybe twenty people, emissaries of the Nevernever nations near Winter. I even recognized most of them. Included among their number was Flin.

He turned to look and his cat-like golden eyes went wide. "Danny," he said, quietly. "Danny! I thought you dead."

"I'm hard to kill," I said and gave him a crooked smile. He was one sidhe who'd be paying off a debt for a while.

"I guess we do owe you poker money after all," said Arborax as he strode out of the tree line. "I'm glad to see you survived. Did you manage to escape the dingonek which beset you?"

"In a way," I said. "Killed it."

"Impressive," he said. "The Dragon Princes had a hard time of it when they met them on the Glittering Fields and that was only a splitter force."

A thought occurred to me. "How long have I been gone?"

"Six days since we last met. The Battle of the Glittering Fields occurred three days ago and this engagement has lasted for two so far."

I blinked. "Two days?"

"Indeed. The Unseelie have bottled the Valley between the ridges. The only way out is through their forces and they are holding well. A few sneak past, of course, using the shadows, but we are well prepared." He tapped the sword which hung on his hip and I noticed he wore armor too, some kind of shimmering scale. "Unfortunately, all attempts to drive an attack home have failed so far."

"The jago-ninis," explained Flin. "They are all but immune to faerie magic, and incredibly strong. Every time a high noble tries to break into the Valley, one appears and breaks the charge."

"If Winter had more troops..." said Thursday and I turned to her.

"You've said that before," I said. "Why?"

"Mab," she said. "She is missing."

My first reaction was 'what'. My second was 'why does that matter'. I asked both questions but phrased them a tad more professionally.

"Mab hasn't been seen in two months," said Flin, "not since she claimed her new Knight on the Stone Table." The traitor Dresden... Did Ancient Mai's revelations make me feel better or worse towards the man? "At first we thought she had merely withdrawn for a time. The Faerie Queens are wont to do such things on occasion. But when she did not reappear during this?"

"Maeve is commanding and leading Winter's forces," said Thursday, "and the Redcap is her Lord Martial, but she is only the Queen Who Is To Come. The wyldfae respond only sluggishly to her call, if at all, and many factions in her court have refused aid entirely."

"Some among the Unseelie would rather see Winter burn than forget a slight," said Flin. From the cruel smile on his face, he wouldn't mind seeing Winter burn either.

"But how has the, um, Valley kept going this long," I said and looked down at the battle. A trio of gigantic dingoneks crashed into the Unseelie lines, horns lowered, but the Winter Fae were adept at dealing with such things. Their lines broke with practiced precision and gnomes came in from all sides, striking with their spears. The tips glittered with Winter's cold and they stabbed deep. Even as the dingoneks began their death spasms, sidhe moved forwards and threw them clear with conjured icy winds. "It must be running out of dingoneks. They're being slaughtered by the Winter Army."

"Have a closer look," said Thursday, a dark look on her face, "with your Sight."

I frowned. The Sight is one of the powers I have as a wizard. It has many names, the Third Eye, the Sixth Sense, but the effect is a simple one. It means looking at the world with all the illusions stripped away. With it I can see what truly is, and that can be a dangerous thing indeed. Faeries don't have the Sight (something about their inability to tell lies of all things) but the powerful ones have something similar enough that it makes little difference in practical terms. If this was what I needed to do to get the information…

I stepped up to the edge of the ridge, gathered my will and forced open my Third Eye.

The first thing I saw was Maeve. She was a tower of strength, more than any wizard I'd ever met, more than a member of the Senior Council, more than the Merlin himself. Black icy power rose up around her, twisting like a snake, and it looked at me. I can't describe it better than that. The Winter power that was Maeve focused on me for the briefest of instants and chilled me to the bone. I forced my gaze away, the image burned irrevocably into my memory all the same, and out over the rest of the Unseelie host. There were other potentates there, sidhe lords who stood out like colored ink in a black-and-white sketch. The Redcap was a giant of a man, dripping with blood. One of the trolls projected an almost physical aura of disease and rot in all directions. The leaders of the cavalry regiments were like sculptures of permafrost, so deep had they drank of Mab's frozen chalice.

Again I forced myself to move on, out from the Unseelie lines and to the Weapon's host. At once I saw what Thursday had meant. Pulsing black lines connected the dingoneks to the Weapon. They thrummed with power. I followed the lines to their source and—

"Ah!" I let out a muffled scream. Dark power boiled off the Weapon. It was like a physical force, smothering my mind with its insane strength. It was what I always thought Mab must look like, or an Angel, Active God or true Dragon. It dwarfed even Maeve's power and scared me to the bone. I could see the remnants of the Weapon's meals still in there, the screaming half forms of Winter Soldiers — sidle, wolves, fae of all shapes and sizes. Looking deeper I could see other things. The spiritual skeletons of dingoneks. Huge beasts which resembled brachiosauruses but I knew to be the magic resistant jago-ninis. I looked deeper and deeper, layer after layer, feeding cycle after feeding cycle. It seemed to have no end but at last I tore my eyes away and shut my Sight.

I stood there gasping, trying to forget what I'd seen but it was of course impossible. It would be with me as long as I lived, as would the knowledge that this was ours. Dane's Weapon was the White Council's secret tool. We were responsible for the horrors it did and held.

After a few minutes, I looked up and said, "The connections. The Wea— The Valley, its got the power. The dingoneks, they're just constructs, projections. Losing them means nothing."

"Not nothing," said Thursday, shaking her head. "The Valley does feed the dingoneks the bulk of their power as needed, but they do contain substantial internal stores, used to support their bodies. For every one Winter kills the Valley is that little bit weaker."

"They're getting smaller too," said Flin. "It's no longer taking the time to grow them to full size and potency."

I shook my head, the memory of the Weapon in my Sight welling up again. "It's too powerful. Maeve can't win this."

"She doesn't need to win," said Arborax, "only keep it contained. Everything we know about the Valley says it works in cycles. Eventually, soon, it will return to the deep Nevernever. Either that or Mab returns, calls Winter's full might and crushes the invader."

Mab might be a possibility, but I knew the Weapon would not retreat on its own. The Key was heavy in my dispatch bag and I realized something else too: no way could I do this alone. I'd seen the power of the Weapon, really seen it, stripped of all illusions, lies and deceptions. It was as far beyond me as I was beyond an ant, and not the secretly super powerful Nevernever kind either. Ancient Mai's instructions rang in my ears. She'd outlined the tasks and dangers I'd need to best before this was over. It was time to ask for help and Mai had given me a cover story for just such an eventuality.

"Flin, Arborax, a word in private?" I motioned off towards the woods. Both looked at me strangely but nodded.

Trust in the Nevernever is a risky thing and never more so than between those in the herald/spy business. That said, in this particular case there were extenuating circumstances. Flin owed me a debt, a big debt. I'd saved his life and faeries can be neurotic about that sort of thing. He would do near anything to pay it off. Arborax was human, or mostly so. I could appeal to that and if I could show him it was in the Towering Mountains best interest to help me, he would do so.

Once we were alone, I sketched a circle in the snowy ground and closed it with an effort of will. It sparked and an invisible wall rose to surround us, impenetrable to mystical energies.

"Danny?" said Arborax, his right hand resting on the pommel of his sword.

"I have a way to beat the Valley," I said. There was no point in beating around the bush with this. "I have been supplied with an artifact that can cause it to sleep again, if I activate it in the deep Nevernever."

"The White Council?" he said and I nodded.

"And what do you want from us?" said Flin.

"Your help. Flin, you owe me a debt for saving your life. We both know it. Don't try to deny it. I'm giving you a chance to pay it off. Help me send the Valley to sleep and return and you're clear."

Flin just nodded.

"And me, Danny?"

"I need your help too. We will be traveling deeper than I ever have before, and I will need skilled travelers by my side, ones I can trust. As is, the Valley is a threat to all the Nevernever. There is a reason you have come to observe this battle, correct?"

Arborax didn't seem happy but nodded his head. "Will you swear on your power that no harm will come to the Towering Mountains because of this action and what you have told me is true?"

I thought about his request and slowly shook my head. Given what I knew about Dane's Weapon I couldn't swear that. Putting it back to sleep would be returning it to White Council control. It might someday be turned against the Towering Mountains, though I couldn't foresee any reason it would. Since they were human, doing so would violate the First Law. Even setting that aside, the White Council was unlikely to care enough about a mere regional power to loose its secret weapon on them. It still wasn't something I could swear to, however.

"I cannot promise," I said after several seconds' careful consideration. "I cannot see the future. I will promise this, though. On my power and to the best of my knowledge the artifact will send the Valley back to sleep."

That I could promise, if only barely. When a wizard swears on his power, it's a serious thing. Break such an oath and your ability to perform magic suffers. Do it often and it will be reduced to a tattered nothing. Worst still, such oaths aren't faerie bargains. The words don't matter as much as the spirit behind them. If I believed the oath broken, in my heart of hearts and soul of souls, it would be broken.

Arborax pursed his lips but nodded. "I will agree to aid you but on one condition. We will form an adventuring company."

"I have no idea what that is," said Flin, deadpan.

"They are a part of Towering Mountains customary law," I said. "Their high nobles use them when they go adventuring."

"Not quite," said Arborax. "Their origin lies in the Hunts of the Heart, to which anyone of any rank can and do attend. Companions join together and pledge themselves to the company, working together towards that common goal. Members cannot accrue debts between themselves, for all actions are thought to be for the good of the company, and all rewards, riches and treasures are split evenly."

"That sounds... Amenable," said Flin and I nodded too. If Arborax thought a company would grant him greater protection, I wasn't going to argue.

"Very well," said Arborax. "We are agreed. First we must draw a circle, which you already have. Next we must have a name. This company is a new thing and must have a new name."

"The Great and Powerful Flin and the Other Two," said Flin in apparent perfect seriousness.

"Colors are traditional," said Arborax, completely ignoring the suggestion, "the Black Guard, the White Company, the Red Men, but most such names are already taken. If a company draws from a particular place or profession, that is often the source. The Company of the Two Rivers is a particularly famous example from the Third Hunt, to which my great-grandfather belonged. They bested the Giants Goram and Vincent, stole the treasure of the river Avona and returned to the Towering Mountains only when King Itax the First summoned his people to war.

"Something heraldic then?" I said.

"The Company of the Three Heralds?" said Arborax.

"I can live with that," I said.

"I prefer my proposed name," said Flin, "but I'll be gracious and accept this as a passable substitute."

"Touch hands," said Arborax and stretched his hand to the center of the circle. I did likewise and Flin did the same a moment later. Arborax's flesh felt human enough, if hard with calluses, but Flin was of the Summer Sidhe. His flesh contained an internal fire, which tingled against my physical nerves and magical senses both. It was a strange contrast.

Arborax began chanting under his breath in a language I didn't understand or even recognize. Power gathered in his words. It wasn't a lot (Arborax had nowhere near the magical potential of Flin or I) but it was there and it danced against my mystical senses. It also felt strange, alien. The humans of the Towering Mountains were first taught their magic by their Dragon master. That Dragon might be five hundred years gone (dead at the hands of Black Court vampires if the tales were true) but knowledge lived on.

He finished in Waytalk, the language of travelers, vagabonds and messengers the Nevernever over. "We are formed," he said. "We are formed. The Company of the Three Heralds is formed!"

The magic in his words rushed free. It crashed against my circle like the sea against a cliff and rolled right back at us again.

It carried our new name within it, written as clear as day to my mystical senses. The Company of the Three Heralds is formed, it said. The Company of the Three Heralds is formed! Arborax hadn't been speaking metaphorically. A new thing had been created here today in this ritual.

With a flick of his foot he broke the circle and the power rushed out again, shouting its message for all to hear. To tell the truth, I was a little worried about the thaumaturgic implications but that was the way of names. To be truly potent, they must be known, at least to a few. Shouting your true name for all to hear is a powerful rite, the total of who you are laid bare and brought to the fore. This was probably something similar.

"We are done," said Arborax. "When do we leave?"

"Gather your things," I said. "We leave at once."

In the snow fields of Winter, beneath the bows of the evergreen trees and within a broken circle, the Company of the Three Heralds began.


	3. Chapter 3

_The Dresden Files is copyright Jim Butcher. This story is licensed under the Creative Commons as derivative, noncommercial fiction._

* * *

It is often said that the Nevernever contains everything you can imagine and many things you can't, and I agree. To me, it's a land of infinite wonder that forever sings its splendor directly into my soul. At the same time, while the Nevernever might contain all that, the individual bits generally obey a central theme. Winter has its ice and snow and cruel, cruel nature. The Towering Mountains has an Arthurian/High Fantasy aesthetic. The Giant Realms are, well, giant. And the Gobi Desert is hot, dry and deadly.

Red sands swept away in all directions, as far as the eye could see. I was panting, too hot, too thirsty. Arborax was scarcely better but Flin, the smug bastard that he was, seemed to be coping just fine. No, he was doing more than fine. There was a veritable spring in his step as he strode across the sands. Summer Sidhe apparently liked the heat; who would have guessed?

Mai's instructions had us leave Winter towards Summer but we turned off shy of the border itself and headed into Wyldfae territory. Given that Summer was the second of the three Nevernever superpowers, it was a relief we didn't need to invade them too. From there we skirted back towards reality, very close, as close as you could get without actually crossing over. The result was the Gobi Desert or its Nevernever equivalent anyway. If not for the voice in the back of my head telling me everything was connected, I could almost think we'd somehow slipped back to Earth. Well that and the strange red skinned man riding the skinny brown goat, but we'd stayed clear of him and he'd returned the favor.

"Danny, if you don't mind that I ask, how much further?" said Arborax. He was down to his shirt, his heavy scale armor slung over his backpack. His words rang with the hollowness of over stretched lungs and sweat matted his hair.

"It shouldn't be much longer," I said and pulled my spirit-compass from my shirt. Hundreds of sigils were engraved around its circumference and I maneuvered the dials, selecting three: 'Find', 'Nevernever' and 'Way'. Without a definite thaumaturgic link, it was like trying to climb a sheer cliff, but I tried anyway. It buzzed in my hands, the needles whirling, and I spun the tuning wheels, trying to zero in on what it was telling me. I was quite surprised when it resolved fairly easily, pointing just ahead. I was even more surprised when the giant worm erupted out of precisely that location and threw itself at Flin.

"Olgoi-khorkhoi!" shouted Flin as he dodged to one side. "Mongolian death worm! Summer has several in her service."

The worm belly slammed into the ground hard enough to shake the sand and I only just kept my feet. It twisted and spat at me, a horrible acidic yellow. I didn't have time to draw my air-dagger so I did the next best thing. I threw up my hands and screamed, "Aema!"

Without my focus the spell took even more out of me than normal, but I grit my teeth, dug deep and forced the wind to come. It came, an unfocused gale, and caught the spit only feet from my face. The acid vaporised on its way back, and the worm screamed a pulsating scream as countless tiny droplets hit its skin. It threw itself to the side, a boneless motion that seemed all momentum and no control. Minute tendrils of smoke rose from it where the acid still burned and sand fizzled all around.

Not wasting a second, I ripped my air-dagger from my belt and slashed it through the air, gathering my will as I did. "Dikhoto!" Wind blades slashed at the worm, invisible save for the twisting of the omnipresent heat haze. Black blood oozed onto the ground where it hissed and spat noxious fumes.

I brought my dagger around for another slash but the worm beat me to it. It bore up and let out a crooning cry. Electricity tore from its body, shooting out like hunting vipers through the sand. They struck and oversized hammers hit every cell in my body. I bore over backwards, barely able to move, my body shaking in involuntary spasms.

Blackness hung around the edge of my vision as I stared up at the too-blue sky. Everything hurt, but I pushed myself to my knees all the same. Flin let loose and blasts of Summer fire exploded against the worm's hide but they did little. This creature was protected against heat. It turned its attention towards him and spat acid again, but Flin was of the sidhe. He danced to the side, streams of fire following his movements and then Arborax was leaping.

Somewhere he'd shed his backpack and scale armor. He flew through the air, sword held ready, archaic shirt flapping in the speed of his movement. He touched down just before the worm, pushed off the sand and brought his sword sweeping upwards in a glittering arc, all the strength of his body behind the blow.

Just before impact he shouted a word which crackled against my mystical senses. His sword came alive, a hazy gauze pulled away to revealed a truer, more refined blade. It sliced through the worm, cutting it completely in half. Acidic blood and bile spurted in all directions but Arborax had already jumped back, his sword held in a guard position.

Really, the whole thing was very impressive. If not for his overly harsh features he could have sprung from one of the romance novels my old Master use to pretend she didn't read. Of course real life wasn't a book. The two halves of the worm began to twitch, once, twice, thrice then they both threw themselves at us.

"Back," I shouted as I staggered fully to my feet, my air-dagger pointing out. "Aema!"

I almost stumbled as a wave of fatigue hit me. Between the heat and too much magic, I wouldn't last much longer. But it was worth it. A concentrated hurricane caught the two worms while they were still in the air and sent them spinning. They hit the ground but recovered quickly. Worst still, they were already growing. The red sand of the Gobi poured into their bodies and they swelled. Energy didn't come from nowhere; there had to be some trick to it, some catch in the worm's defensive powers, but I didn't know what.

"The hole!" shouted Flin. I risked a look and saw him pointing down.

There was a gaping maw in the ground. Sand trickled into it and it seemed to have no bottom that I could see. My Nevernever sixth-sense screamed at me and I knew what it was, knew it as surely as I knew I had two hands or that all things in the Nevernever were connected and alive. It was a Way, our Way, a passage between Nevernever realms. The Mongolian death worm had been living in it but this was what Ancient Mai had sent us to find.

"Jump," I shouted and ran towards it. Flin did so immediately; a short hop and he disappeared from view. Behind me, I could hear the worms screaming again, the cry that preceded a lightning attack.

Arborax was just ahead but he was facing the wrong way. "My pack," he said, one hand reaching out.

"No time." I grabbed him by the shoulder and shoved him into the hole. I followed a moment later, crackling electricity on my heels, the scent of ozone in my nose.

* * *

I groaned and tried to sit up. I hurt all over, and my head pounded. It was only when I blinked that I realized my eyes were already open. It was pitch black. I couldn't even see my hand in front of my face.

"Arborax," I said. "You there?"

I only got a moan in reply, from a few feet to my right.

"Flin?"

"Yes Danny?" he said, in an annoyingly chipper voice.

"You okay?"

"Oh yes. A fall from that height is not particularly impressive. Why, when I was courting the Lady Fidelia I leapt from a tree almost twice that height."

"Um," I said. "Did you win her heart?"

"Alas, no. She was impressed by neither my wit nor ingenuity."

What do you say to that? Well there was one thing. "Could you make us some light?" With the way my head felt, I was more likely to kill myself than force the energies of the universe to obey my will.

"But of course," said Flin and suddenly a bright white light sprung into existence.

After blinking and hissing I checked on Arborax. He was cringing at the light too and I took that as a good sign.

"You okay?" I said again.

"I am passable," he said from between clenched teeth. "Pray, give me but a moment."

Once I was sure my companion was well, I stood and looked around. I was in a shadowed hall. The far ends were hidden in darkness and arches made up the roof, covered in runes. Stone tables sat along both walls, hundreds of them, and bulky figures lay upon them, their flesh gray, their clothes covered with dust. None of them moved, and no two were quite alike. There was one unifying feature, however. They were all huge.

The name Ancient Mai had given this place suddenly made a lot more sense: the Hall of Dead Giants.

Flin, a globe of light in his hand, moved to the nearest stone bed. As he drew near, the light caught against hundreds of tiny marks. More runes covered the bed, much like they did the ceiling. "Here lies Cormoran," he read. "Killed by Jack the Giant Killer." He moved on, to the next stone bed in the row. "Here lies Blunderbore. Killed by Jack the Giant Killer." The next. "Here lies Rebecks. Killed by Jack the Giant Killer." He turned and looked back at me. "This Jack character seems to have been busy."

"Seems so," I said. "You ready Arborax?"

"Oh, very well."

I held out a hand and helped him up. When I turned back to Flin he was peering at Rebecks.

"His throat was cut."

Arborax and I approached and it soon became clear that Flin was indeed correct. The giant's neck was slit open, right down to the windpipe. He also had an ugly bruise in the same place, the flesh purple where it wasn't sliced apart. While we were doing that, Flin approached the next bed.

"Here lies Thunderdell," he said. "Killed by Jack the Giant Killer." This giant was particularly large and had two heads. "Let's see what killed this one." He moved to the side of the table and—

"Fee-fi-fo-fum," boomed the giant. His voice was grinding stones, like Adam but a hundred times as deep and loud. "I smell the blood of an Englishman."

Flin threw himself back and landed on his rear end. He scrambled, pushing himself away, and only stopped when he reached my side. When the giant made no further motions, I re-sheathed my air-dagger and dragged Flin back to his feet.

"Englishman?" I said. "I'm pretty sure I was born in America. I did spend a year fostered in England and four years as an apprentice in Scotland. Does that count?"

"England is on Earth," said Arborax, "The Towering Mountains is in the Nevernever."

"For your information I am English," said Flin. We both turned to look at him. "Originally." He dusted his clothes and proceeded to imitate a cat caught doing something inelegant: pretend it never happened and challenge anyone nearby to say otherwise. "What? I was a changeling, born Bournemouth, England, 1952."

"That's settled then," I said. "If anyone's bones need to get made into bread, it's Flin's."

"I don't think we quite agreed to that," said Arborax, looking confused.

Before I could give him a lesson on British rhymes, footsteps echoed down the hall.

It took only a single moment for the jokes to be forgotten. I drew my air-dagger anew and readied my will, gathering the energy I'd need to cast a spell. Arborax drew his sword and Flin re-angled his body, his free hand pointing forward, the globe of light held behind.

A boy strode into view. He was short and young. His skin was soft and no stubble covered his chin. Despite that, I felt the stirrings of power against my mystical senses. In the Nevernever things were often not what they seemed.

"Who trespasses in my halls?" he said. His hand went to a sword at his belt and rested on the pommel. If I didn't want this to go badly, I'd need to play it right.

"My name is Wizard Archdale," I said and bowed my head. "I am an Ordained Herald in the Service of the White Council. These are my companions, Arborax of the Kingdom of the Towering Mountains and Flin, of the Court of the Summer Sidhe. I bring you greetings and request travel through your territory. We arrived by Way and would not seek to intrude."

"How do I know you are not giants?" said the boy.

"Well, we are quite small," said Flin.

"Giants have been known to hide their forms with sorcery," he said.

The boy's power continued to rub against my senses.

"We have given our names," said Arborax. "Won't you give us yours?"

"You do not know me?" he said. "I am Jack, Giant Killer. Why venture my halls if you do not know me?"

I tried very hard not to let my eyes flicker to the endless rows of corpses, tried very hard but in the end failed. There were hundreds there, possibly thousands and all we had checked listed Jack as the killer. If that was true... There was a way I could learn more about Jack: my Sight, my Third Eye. With an effort of will I forced it open and Saw.

Jack towered above me, a volcano of power. If possible he looked even more potent than the Winter Lady. In his aura I saw all the giants he had killed, a thousand faces, stabbed, hung, drowned, speared, beheaded, crushed and killed countless other ways. And from each there was a prize, a token claimed by combat and cemented by legend. His sword blazed too bright for me to see. His cap swum with a thousand half formed ideas, just waiting to be plucked. His cloak was an intricate mesh of magical energy, like that which empowered a greater Ring of Invisibility but ten times as fine, far better than anything my Master ever made. His shoes seemed to contain the wind itself.

While I stood transfixed, I could hear Flin and Arborax whispering to each other. It was hard to translate. My open Third Eye pumped Truth directly into my brain and everything else seemed insignificant next to that.

"I could attempt to bind him," said Arborax in a hushed whisper. "The name he gave tasted True, though whether part or all of the truth I cannot say."

"He didn't give a surname," said Flin, "just first and title. It can't be all of it."

"Surnames are a relatively new thing, and some of these giants are old. He might not have one."

"What do you discus, invaders?" said Jack and his hand tightened around his sword, the sword that shone brighter than any weapon I'd ever seen. "Your conspiracy names you giant or friend of giant, and I will stomach neither."

"Do it now," hissed Flin.

That last finally knock the requisite mental bricks loose and I forced my Third Eye shut. The aftermath left me shaken and mind-weary but there was no time. "No," I hissed and grabbed Arborax's wrist. "Do not anger him." What I saw still shook me, the tremendous power, the thousands dead, but I forced it to one side, not forgotten, never forgotten, but not filling my mind either. "He's more powerful than a Lady."

Arborax's flesh went rigid under my hand and I let go.

"We are not giants," I said. "There must be some way we can prove this too you. Name your test or evidence and we will do our best to supply it."

"There is one way," said Jack. "Perhaps. Ever since I broke the riddle magic of the Red Ettin no giant can match my wit. If you can answer three riddles of my choosing I will let you pass."

"Two moments," I said and turned to huddle with my companions. Once we were close together I said, "His cap has mind magic in it; do we want to risk it or try for another test?"

"I don't see that we have much choice," said Arborax.

"But riddling," said Flin. "How... Quaint." He looked nothing so much as a fan of classical opera who'd just found himself in a back country sing-along.

I turned back to Jack. "We agree." He smiled.

"Very well," he said. "Riddle the first. What has a tongue but doesn't speak?"

I knew this one. "A Shoe."

"Correct, but now that you have answered you may not do so again."

"What!" said Arborax. "We never agreed to that."

"This is my game," said Jack. He drew his sword and, unsheathed, it beat against my mystical senses. Arborax and Flin both eyed it warily. "Speak again before the game is done and I will cut you down where you stand. No conferring; one must answer and he must do so alone. Now, are your companions ready to continue?"

They mutely signaled that they were, but did so only reluctantly. I didn't blame them one bit.

"Good. Question the second: What am I?"

_"Within I am as white as snow,_

_without as green as herbs that grow;_

_I am higher than a house,_

_and yet am lesser than a mouse."_

Flin and Arborax looked at each other for a moment but it was Arborax who nodded his head.

"It's small," he said to himself, fingers drumming on his sword pommel. "And high up. It's white inside and green on the out. Some kind of fruit or seed." His eyes opened wide and he smiled. "A walnut," he said to Jack. "A walnut on a tree. The flesh of the nut is white while fresh and it's held within a green husk."

"Correct again," said Jack. He moved his sword to point to Flin. "You and you alone must answer this question."

Flin made a get-on-with-it gesture with his hand and I felt something clench inside my stomach. While Flin was my friend, he'd never struck me as the wisest of the Fae.

"Listen carefully," said Jack. "I will say this only once. Your mother has sent you to retrieve a single quart of water from the river but the one-quart measure is missing. Instead you have only a three-quart measure and a five-quart measure. How can you use these tools to measure out but a single quart?"

Flin looked board and I had to stop myself screaming. I knew the answer but couldn't say it and resorted to gritting my teeth. This was exactly the kind of annoying logical puzzle my old master would set me while sitting in front of the fire, her knitting-wands clacking away. She did it because she knew I hated them, but this one I had indeed solved.

"Can't you at least try?" said Flin.

Jack looked confused but pulled himself up and said, "If you don't know the answer..."

"Oh I know it," said Flin. "I was just hoping for a challenge. Take the three-quart measure and fill it with water. Pour that water into the five-quart measure and then refill the three-quart measure. Pour that water again into the five-quart measure and stop when it is full. The three-quart measure now holds a single quart."

Jack was silent for a single second, then nodded his head. He re-sheathed his sword. "Correct. You have proved that you are not giants. Be gone from my hall."

"Ah!" said Flin, raising his finger. "Not yet. Now it is our turn. My riddle is this—"

I grabbed him by the shoulder and shoved him forward. "No it isn't," I said to Flin then sent a respectful nod to Jack. "Thank you for your hospitality."

It took us almost ten minutes of walking to reach the door, and each giant we passed along the way made me all the happier that we'd escaped as easily as we did. When I got back to the White Council, there would be a new great power in the ledgers.

* * *

The door to the Hall of Dead Giants slammed shut, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Then the weight of the universe came crashing down.

"Feel that?" said Flin and I could only nod.

We were deep in the Nevernever, very deep. I'd been deeper only twice, once when I bathed my never-knife in the elemental streams and a second time, when I ran the Prince of Svartalfheim and his Red Court allies to ground. Neither journey had been easy. Neither journey had been safe. Both had made me feel alive like few things had or do.

While Flin and I stood contemplating the universe, Arborax began exploring our new circumstances. The door had deposited us on a rocky path, high up on a canyon wall. He walked over to the edge and whistled. That was enough to break my reverie and I moved to join him.

"The River Styx," I said in a hushed whisper. It was dark and black and sucked at my magic like a vacuum. Normal running water grounds magic, making it hard to do. I didn't want to think what this river would do.

"A River Styx at least," said Flin as he appeared on my opposite side. "Where do we go from here?"

"We follow the river," I said. That was what Ancient Mai had said, 'pass through the Hall of Dead Giants and onto the River of the Dead. There take boat and travel to where two colossi stand sentinel watch.'

"That path looks to lead down to the water," said Arborax, pointing off to one side.

"After you."

The path was steep and covered with small stones. It took most of my attention to avoid slipping and Arborax was in a similar state, one hand constantly on the rock wall. Flin was the odd man out. He pranced forward, projecting an all sidhe mix of effortless motion and peerless grace. I was pretty sure he did it just to prove his earlier fall was not only an abnormality but quite possibly never happened.

Ten minutes later we reached the bottom and a beach of black sand. Stygian waters blocked one side, high cliffs obstructed another two and the remaining three were occupied by a dark, cloud-filled sky, the way we'd came and the ground under our feet.

"Where now?" said Flin. "The way is blocked."

"We summon a boat man," I said.

"How?"

It was Arborax who answered. "Death."

I started making preparations. First came the circle. I pulled a long piece of plastic coated copper wire from one of my many pockets. When summoning, you wanted as strong a circle as possible and metals provided that, pure metals especially so. I set it on the ground, looped off the excess and bound it together with three clips. Now I just needed to decide what to put inside.

"Anyone have an obol?" I asked. Obols are coins, left in the mouth of the recently dead. Real obols are also very rare. They can only be made in the mortal world and even then are only truly potent if both the deceased and those performing the funeral rites believe in their use. Such rituals are largely gone from the world.

It came as no surprise when both Arborax and Flin shook their heads.

"Right then. Wallets and coin purses. We need coins."

Arborax pulled a purse from his belt and held it up. Silver shone inside, maybe three dozen coins most about the size of a Roman denarii but some quite a bit bigger. I plucked a particularly fat coin from near the top and turned to Flin. He sighed and pulled out a rather fashionable leather wallet. Dollar bills filled one side but strange coins inhabited the other; they glimmered in an alien light all their own.

"This one," he said and held up a cloudy coin which looked almost like iron, but was of course nothing of the kind. Fairies could not stand the touch of that particular metal. "The last words of a dying grandfather."

"Thanks," I said and plucked it from his hands. Only a day before Flin had tricked me using a very similar coin, but that was then and this was now. Arborax had bound us to a common purpose and company, a new thing with a new name; it provided at least a modicum of protections against such things.

I placed both coins at the spirit point of my soon-to-be pentacle and added a British 50p peace for myself. That just left the other four points: water, fire, earth and air. I needed a ritual implement for each and, as Arborax had said, they needed to be tainted by death.

In a ritual like this there could be only one kind of water. I took my never-knife and made a shallow cut in my hand. The pain stung but I ignored it and let my blood drip onto the ground. Then I splashed my hand with antiseptic and sealed it with a plaster. You couldn't be too careful.

For fire I took a chicken bone from one of my pockets and set it on the ground. Only a few months before it had been part of my lunch but it made the transition to mystical ritual object with barely a bump. I pointed my finger at it, gathered energy in my mind and thrust it out. "Empura!"

A glittering ember formed at the heart of the chicken bone. I gritted my teeth and pushed more energy into the spell. The fire expanded and the bone turned to ash, starting at the middle and rolling out until even the ends were gone. I had almost no talent for fire evocation but for something this simple I could manage, though it took me a lot of effort.

After taking a few minutes to recover, I turned to the next element: earth. For that I used a lock of my hair, sliced from where it wouldn't show with my never-knife. That just left wind. After considering the mystical implications and a variety of possibilities, I took one of my clean white candles and placed it at the proper place in my circle. There I lit it with a match, let it burn for ten long seconds and then blew it out. While the smoke was still rising into the air, I sealed my circle with an effort of will and began my spell.

"Ferryman of Hades, hear me," I cried in English, thrusting energy into the words. "Carrier of the dead, listen to my call. We stand upon your river. We pay with coin and life and death. I am Daniel Archdale, Wizard of the White Council, and need your aid. Charon, Charon, Charon! I summon thee!"

With a crash of thunder the ferryman appeared. He stood tall, perhaps six feet with inches to spare, and had a wild appearance — small eyes, an unkempt beard and tiny scars on his ham like hands and boxer like face. He wore clothes of reddish-brown and held his pole in his right hand.

"What is it now?" he said. "Can't you see I'm busy?" He waved his pole and I looked at it again. It wasn't a ferryman's tool that I saw. It was a fisherman's. Fishing twine hung from the tip and the hook swung in the air.

"Um," I said before recovering. "Charon we would barter for our passage."

Charon looked behind him and turned back to me. "That's the river Styx. I carried travels across the river Acheron, though there are few enough looking to buy that particular service these days."

"Have you considered expanding?" said Flin. "A good business model means always looking for new opportunities."

I shot Flin an annoyed look but Charon boomed with laughter. "Perhaps I should, young sidhe. Perhaps I should." He looked down at his feet, where my pentagram and its ritual objects still shone with power. "And would this be my payment?"

My master might have taught me the old and proper ways of such things, but the Nevernever taught me to go with my gut instincts. I could see the direction the wind was blowing. "We can also pay in Dollars if you prefer."

"That I do," said Charon and smiled. "$50 each or $75 for the hero special."

"What's the hero special?"

Charon smiled even wider and his eyes shone. "It comes with a return ticket."

"A moment please."

Flin, Arborax and I gathered in a tight huddle and quickly counted our money. Luckily Flin still had most of his poker winnings from the day/week before (delete whichever is temporally inappropriate). Arborax was of course still stinking rich but was less likely to carry Earthly currency unless he knew he'd need it.

"Three hero specials," I said and showed him the money.

"Splendid," said Charon. "We have a deal, by my name and nature and power, we have a deal."

"By my name and nature and power we have a deal," I said back and with the final word, the bargain settled on me. It felt like a falling sheet of silk, near weightless but strong all the same. As soon as Charon got his money, he would be bound to fulfill his end. The next part could be tricky, though, especially using a makeshift circle.

In two near simultaneous motions, I broke the circle with my foot and shoved the stack of dollar bills into Charon's hands. He plucked them away and smiled, likely knowing exactly what was going through my head. Even now it wasn't safe (many a wizard had learned that lesson the hard way, often fatally) but there was little I could do to make it safer.

"All aboard," he said and lifted his hands.

Behind him a boat rose from the shadowed depths of the River Styx. It was no simple skiff, either, but a fairly modern ferry, with a white-painted metal hull and a large deck, filled with what looked like lounge chairs and parasols. The sign on the side said, 'Charon Ferry Services Limited, established Ancient Greece.'

* * *

The boat moved slowly through the black waters, the engine chugging along.

"Where to, boy?" said Charon.

We stood in the command cabin, a small room dominated by an anachronistic wheel and some chirping computers. I had less trouble with electronics than some wizards but I kept my distance all the same. Arborax and Flin were on the foredeck, talking between themselves.

"The two colossi," I said pointing down river. "Do you know it?"

"Aye, boy. I know it. You're one of them are you?" He cast a meaningful glance down at my dispatch bag.

"No, I..." I said and took a step back, my hand half going to my air-dagger.

"Don't panic, boy. Don't panic. Your Merlin. He geased me proper, and not many places better for geasing folk than here, eh? Can't talk about what I know. If you'd told me your business, I'd have even given you free passage."

Feeling a little better, I risked a slight smile. "But let me guess, you're not going to return our money now you know?"

"That I ain't boy. That I ain't."

"Can you at least give us some freshwater? My canteens are getting low."

"That I can do," he said and gave me a wide toothy smile; he'd never get on American TV. "There's a water tank below decks; held yourself. Would be food too but you need ta' give notice for that and pay extra. Gotta break even."

"Thanks," I said, truly meaning it. "I could use magic to pull water out of the air but..." I shook my head. "If you don't mind me asking, why do you need money? You're a god."

"God? Suppose I was once. Now days? I looked myself up, you know. I'm a psychopomp or a daimon or an underworld spirit. Doesn't do me much good. People stopped performing my rites centuries ago, and her indoors wants a new kitchen. Nothing like some Nevernever work for beating the tax man, eh, even if it's on my day off."

"You're married?"

"Sure. Needed to do something with my time. Met a nice woman out New England way. Settled down. House and kids. Run my ferry for tourists and the like; make a show of it even. Course, they don't know I'm really me do they?"

I really didn't want to think about the boatman of the underworld having kids. There was precedent for it, of course: scions, children born of the mixed essences of the material and spirit worlds. That didn't mean I wanted to dwell on it, though. It was time to put the conversation on another bearing.

"If you've done this route before, how long does it normally take?"

Charon sucked in his lower lip. "Hard to say. A few hours normally. Never longer than a day. The river's sluggish, though."

"Right, mind if I go..." I pointed towards where my friends sat on the foredeck.

"Go, go. I'll shout if I need you."

As I approached, Flin was speaking.

"I am of the sidhe, Arborax. We stopped asking riddles because there was no sport in it, not because we weren't good. Indeed, precisely the opposite is the case. It's you I'm surprised by. Walnut trees?"

"You think my name a coincidence?" said Arborax and shook his head. "No, my family has extensive orchards in the Towering Mountains and the Protectorates. I've supervised harvest since I was old enough to stand. Why—" He broke off when he noticed me and waved a greeting. "Danny."

"Arborax, Flin," I said and dropped onto one of the lounge chairs. "We'll be two hours, at least. Probably longer. The river is sluggish apparently."

Flin stuck his head over the side and said, "Looks swift to my eyes."

To tell the truth, I had to agree with him. The River Styx rushed silently by, channeled between the high cliffs. The sky above was dark and boiled with storm clouds but no rain fell. If this was sluggish, I didn't want to know what Charon thought brisk.

"We might not have another chance like this to rest," I said, "so let's use it. Get some rest, eat, drink." I pulled off my backpack and extracted a selection of ration bars and all my canteens. "We got fresh water downstairs. Help yourself."

* * *

"Demons off the starboard bow!" Charon's voice boomed over the deck.

My head snapped up. As descriptive terms go, 'demon' ranked only below 'spirit' in usefulness, simply meaning a malicious entity native to the Nevernever. Charon's warning could be merely bad or very very bad.

Our ferry rounded a bend in the River Styx and the rocky canyon wall to my right fell away. Sulfur fields took its place, stretching out as far as I could see. Volcanoes erupted in the distance. Rivers of lava fed into lakes of the same. Forests filled with dead black trees survived in places and kicking shapes hung from the branches. Everywhere there were demons, horrible, monstrous demons. They were hodgepodge creatures, seemingly random mixtures of animal, human and tentacled horror. A ten foot tall creature screamed wordless rage at me. Its arms were the striking blades of a praying mantis, its head a dog's and its body three human torsos bound together with wire. Behind it were countless others, all as grotesque and weird.

With numb horror I realized what I was seeing and it was the very worst interpretation. These weren't just any demons. This wasn't just any Nevernever realm. We were passing one of the many allied fiefdoms which formed Down Below, the third and final Nevernever superpower. And now we had to fight our way through.

With a cacophony of cries, two dozen demons charged to water and began launching four boats.

"Prepare to repel boarders," cried Charon.

The demon boats hit the water already going fast, six demons in each. Those creatures with more usable limbs grabbed paddles and began beating the water, generating more propellant force than any human.

"Flin," I shouted. "Stop those boats. Arborax guard."

The more human of my companions erupted to his feet, sword already unsheathed. Flin was just behind him, Summer fire appearing in his hands, flames which burnt with life and vitality. I joined him, my air-dagger draw, my will and power already primed.

"Aema!" I shouted, shoving all that gathered power through my dagger and into my spell. A focused hurricane shot towards the nearest boat but I could already see the problem. For every foot my spell move forward, it halved in power. By the time it reached the demon's it was barely a gust.

Flin's attempt was even feebler. Globes of fire appeared in his hands (tighter and brighter than during our fight with the dingonek) but they snuffed out as soon as they cleared the boat. He tried again but to the same effect. He sent me a frown and shook his head.

It was the water, I realized, the River Styx. As I've noted before, running water shorts out magic, making spells fail if they pass through or over it. The River Styx was worse, ten times as bad as any river I'd ever seen. It sucked at the energy of my spell and, as I extended my mystical senses, I could feel it sucking at mine too.

The demons passed the halfway mark with much whooping and screaming. Claws, hands, paws, hooks and other stranger things beat the air. We were running out of time. I had to do something, anything.

My mind blazing, I fished chalk from my jacket and drew a circle around my feet. Time was the real key but power could get me in through the back door. The circle sparked as I closed it, and I raised my air-dagger, touching it to my forehead. There are two basic kinds of magic, evocation and ritual. In evocation you grab all the power you can in a moment and force it into a spell. In ritual you take your time, build up your power and release it only when ready. It was time for the latter of the two.

The spell formed in my mind, contained and sheltered by the circle but not supported by ritual objects as it really should have been. I added power, drawing from the pool of concentrated magic contained in my circle. Without that circle, the million clawing hands of the River Styx would have stolen the energy even as I drew it, but with it, I stood in a sheltered glen, the shielded casting space essential to all complicated magic. Even so, my spell beat against my control, straining to break free and rip my mind to shreds. I didn't give it a chance.

In a single smooth movement, I opened my eyes, broke my circle and pointed my air-dagger at the nearest boat. It was worryingly close but that only served my purpose.

"Aema!"

My conjured wind almost threw me off my feet. It was ten times as powerful as my previous attempt and only had a tenth as far to go. The boat exploded out of the water and the demons in it dissolved as they hit the river, their screams horrifying even knowing their nature. The impact of my spell threw up a wave which rocked the ferry and capsized another of the demon boats but the others were already too close. It threw them against our hull and demons leapt aboard.

"Be gone creatures of the pit," thundered Charon. "These souls are under my protection." He stood on the staircase leading from the deck to the command cabin. In his hand his fishing pole glowed. His power sparked against my mystical senses. It wasn't a lot, less than a Faerie Lady, less than a Sidhe Noble, less than even a White Council Wizard, but it was focused by his very nature. A wave of force flew from him and knocked a demon into the river, but there were eleven more.

A screaming devil frog belched green fire at him and Charon was forced back, his fishing pole spinning as he deflected the attack. I stabbed my dagger at its oversized stomach and screamed my spell. The energy drain left my head spinning but wind-blades sliced deep and it fell backwards, its own flames eating it from the inside out.

Nearer the prow, Arborax dueled sword against sword with a black armored knight. Smoldering runes marked his armor and his helmet look like a stylized lion's head. In between Flin laughed a manic faerie laugh as he launched fireball after fireball at the demons. Where they hit, demon flesh burnt and sizzled away. There was no love loss between faerie and demon, and the weapons of Summer and Winter were adept at killing such beings. That still left plenty for me.

An insectoid horror leapt at me, vestigial wings buzzing. A dozen mouths covered its chest and violet tongues flicked out from each, tasting the air. My strength was drawing near its end; running water and three pieces of heavy-duty magic would tire even powerful wizards and I never ranked among their company. Luckily sharp bits of rune covered metal have multiple uses.

The insectoid horror tried to grab me but I spun away. Once I had my balance I slashed out and cut open one of the monster's eyes. It screamed and slammed out with an arm, sending me sprawling. I hit the deck and what little air remained in my chest rushed out, leaving me winded and stunned, unable to move. It bore down on me while I lay there, each of its countless tongues straining for me, but a blast of fire caught it in the head. It yelled in pain and staggered backwards, but what the initial blast didn't do, the lingering fire did. The Summer flames burnt at its flesh and skull, eating deeper and deeper until the demon fell like a puppet with its strings cut.

As I staggered back to my feet, Charon sent another demon flying with a force blast but was again beset by attackers, this time a pair of near identical monkeys with fur the colour of rust and exposed spines made of flickering flames. Arborax still fought his opponent and Flin seemed to have finally found a demon with skin able to withstand his attacks, a monster with a splotchy red and black hide, seemingly made of stone. It looked like a good place to start.

I screamed as I charged and sunk my air-dagger into the small of its back. It grunted but didn't fall so I gathered the last dregs of my will and power and shouted, "Dikhoto!" Wind-blades ripped the demon apart from the inside and it fell.

There was a raw scream and Charon sent both of his monkey assailants over the side, where they dissolved in clouds of stinking sulfur. That just left one. Charon, Flin and I advanced on the armored knight, though in my case it was only slowly and on weak knees.

"Surrender," said Arborax, his sword held ever ready, "and I will offer you honorable terms."

The knight turned his leonine head, evaluating each of us in turn. After a few seconds he finished whatever mental arithmetic he was performing and lowered his sword so the point touched the deck. I thought for one horrible moment he did intend to surrender (what would I even do with him?) but he proved himself more resourceful of that.

With a single swift movement of his sword, he raised a wall of sparks and smoke. I charged forwards and so did Arborax but we found only phantasms. When it cleared he was gone. The only thing left was a sigil, scarred by fire into the deck. I looked at it, my eyes squinted and watering due to the sulfur rising into the air. It was a personal mark. Whoever this demon was he'd left me a sigil to recognize him by; that couldn't be a good sign.


	4. Chapter 4

_The Dresden Files is copyright Jim Butcher. This story is licensed under the Creative Commons as derivative, noncommercial fiction._

* * *

Three hours, twenty minutes later the ferry pulled up next to a small beach under the watchful eyes of two gigantic colossi, each the size of the Statue of Liberty. Their faces were worn smooth and indistinct, though probably not because of weather. This deep in the Nevernever, keeping a definite shape was hard, and doing so for an extended period of time was even more of an uphill battle. The leftmost wore a sweeping robe and carried a staff, indicating he might be a wizard. His twin on the right bank looked female but since dresses and robes are hard enough to tell apart at the best of times, I didn't want to venture a guess on her magical aptitude.

"This river's become more dangerous since I last rode her length," said Charon.

I could only nod. While Down Below had only broken into the River Styx at one point, one point was enough. If not for Flin, the insect monster would've killed me. Even if the Company of the Three Heralds meant I owed him no debt, magical or otherwise, I couldn't help but feel I owed him. Maybe I'd let him win some more of my money the next time we played poker?

"When you wish to return, drop these into water," said Charon and handed me three coins. They were made of silver and were very old, showing a Medusa head on one side and an anchor on the other. True obols. They buzzed against my mystical senses. "I'll be wanting those back, you here. College isn't cheap, and I have growing kids."

"I for one certainly intend to redeem mine," said Flin.

Charon snorted and turned to leave. Within a few minutes he and his ferry had disappeared into the River Styx's mists. Once the last signs were gone, I pointed towards the wizard statue. "That way."

"What are we looking for? " said Arborax as we started towards it.

"A circle," I said, "made of metal. It should be set into the floor between the wizard's feet somewhere."

It wasn't hard to find, and after only a few minutes searching Flin picked it out with his keen eyes.

"This is mortal magic," he said, kneeling down beside it. He used his hands to scrub off some of the dust, dirt and grime. It revealed a circle of gold, set with thirteen diamonds around its circumference and engraved with a dense rune script I couldn't even begin to parse.

"It _is_ under a giant statue of a wizard," I said and pointed up.

"Hum," he said and I rapidly moved to the next stage in my directions.

"This is a tricky bit," I said and drew my never-knife. "This time we go straight down."

The Nevernever is best understood through metaphor, if only because the whole and unadulterated truth would cause your brain to dribble out your ears. The exact metaphor needed depends very much on the task at hand but I've always been partial to the Onion. Under the Onion model, the Nevernever is thought of as a series of layers, each on top of each other. The Earth is at the center of the onion and the Outer Gates comprise the very last, the protective skin if you will.

To travel deeper into the Nevernever you move from layer to layer, away from Earth and towards the Outside, though as a Law abiding wizard I would of course never go that far, even if I did wonder what was there. Mostly this is done by finding points of congruity between Nevernever realms, places were a deeper layer overlaps a shallower one, but if you have the power and knowledge you can cut your own holes, what I called realm shifting. That wasn't quite what I was doing here (Dane, the Third Merlin had already made the hole; I was just opening the door) but it was close enough for a metaphor.

"Everyone inside the circle," I said and we all squeezed in. It was a tight fit and I don't think Dane ever intended for this many people to use his private back door elevator. "Hold tightly and whatever you do, do not break the circle." The inlaid gems should allow it to stop physical matter but I didn't want to take any chances.

My companions nodded in reply and placed their hands upon my shoulders, gripping tightly. I meanwhile gathered my will and fed it into the circle. It closed with a crack, and I spent an additional ten seconds making sure it was safe and secure. Ancient Mai had warned me that this part could be dangerous. Given the things I'd already faced on the journey, I decided to take her warning to heart.

"On three," I said and pointed my never-knife at the ground. "One, two, three, Anapiesma!"

The universe flashed and disappeared. A split second later it was back but different. We were in a tiny cave. A single smooth wall hugged the circle on all sides, with only inches to spare. It was made from dark rock or stone, and when I looked closer I saw thousands of interlocking runes. Just like the circle, they were dense and meaningless but there was magic there; of that I had no doubt.

"On three," I said again and paused to gather my will. It came sluggish and slow but stopping half way was not an option. "One, two, three, Anapiesma!"

The world flashed off, then on and was replaced by an undersea scene. Dense green seaweed hung like the trailing hair of a titanic goddess and gigantic monster fish swam among it. They were huge things, the size of sharks, and had bulbous eyes and weird multi colored fangs. They didn't claim my attention, however. That prize belonged to the immense pressure which bore in from all sides. Despite all I could do, the circle started to crack and sparks shot up from the golden ring around my feet.

"Anapiesma!" I screamed, raw adrenalin hot-wiring the spell. We flashed again and this time appeared in a black void. My stomach tried to swim out my mouth. There was no gravity.

"Anapie..." I started but ran head first into a wave of vertigo. The gathered energies of my spell tore at my control, even as I battled with my body. I nearly lost both battles but I grit my teeth and fought through. "Anapiesma!"

Again we traveled and my heart almost shot out of my chest when a sword shot straight towards us. Even as I shoved more energy into the circle (energy I really couldn't afford to lose) it veered off, missing by inches. Then it happened again and again. Breathing heavily, I looked around. There were swords everywhere and all were in constant motion, slashing, stabbing, blocking, and dancing. No hands guided the blades but they moved all the same. The only oasis of calm was the circle.

Given that this world was oddly peaceful, first impressions withstanding, I took a moment to catch my breath. Realm shifting wasn't the most draining of spells (as I've mentioned before, I have a talent for Nevernever magic) but doing it four times in quick succession was too much even for me. Once I stopped sounding like an Olympic sprinter after a race, I gathered my will and energy one last time and said, "Anapiesma!"

We flashed and appeared in the middle of a long corridor. Doors filled the hall on both sides and the far ends disappeared into infinity.

"We're here," I said and let my power flow from the circle. Thin tendrils of smoke rose from the thirteen diamonds but it seemed otherwise intact.

"This is where we activate your device?" said Flin and I shook my head.

"No. That's a day's march that way." I pointed down the corridor. "But there's no more realm shifting, or rather there shouldn't be."

While I recovered the rest of my breath, Arborax and Flin spread out, exploring the corridor. I watched but had no real desire to join in. Flin pulled open one of the doors, poked his head inside and slammed it shut again just as quick. "I'd advise against opening these," he said, face pale. I had no wish to argue. This was the beginning of the end and I didn't want to see it ruined now.

* * *

We walked for two more hours before breaking for the night, not that night had any real meaning in the corridor. The light was omnipresent, appearing from everywhere and nowhere. The walls and doors never changed, the mile before the same as the mile after. Even split between two my food was lasting and water wasn't yet a problem thanks to Charon. I slept propped against the wall and Arborax did the same, opposite me. Flin lounged somewhere between, all cat like grace.

I awoke seven hours later when the ground shook.

"What?" I muttered and opened my eyes. It took me a moment to remember where I was, but when I did, I blinked the sleep from my eyes and staggered to my feet.

The rumbling came again, and I traced its source. It originated at the far end of the infinite corridor, back towards the golden circle. I fished my collapsible telescope from my jacket and raised it to my eye. What I saw made me swear.

A slash of vivid green hung in the distance. I looked closer and saw plants and vines and other things still. It was a jungle and not just any jungle. It was Dane's Weapon. The Key called and it came.

"Up," I shouted. "Everyone up!"

Flin was awake and on his feet in moments but Arborax was slower. He groaned and rolled over, his back towards me. "Damn you," I shouted as I strode forward and shook his shoulder. "Up. The Weapon is just behind us?"

"The what?" said Flin.

"The Valley," I said. "I mean the damn Valley." Damn, damn, damn. "But it's a Weapon in every way that counts."

"The Valley?" said Arborax from behind sleep addled eyes. "But it's fighting Winter."

"Not anymore it's not," I said. "It's followed us and is right behind."

He swore too and then started scrambling about. "Right, right, give me a minute."

"What I don't understand is why it is following us. Danny, do you know?" said Flin, voice dripping with false sincerity.

"The artifact," I said. "It's already active." It was true and as good an explanation as I could give.

"What? Why?" said Arborax. He stumbled to his feet and began looking about. He spied his sword and snatched it up.

"I don't know!" And that was true too. A homing beacon you could turn on and off would have many advantages, though there was probably a technical reason it had to be the way it was. Will might be the foundation of all magic but study and research were important too. "This was how it was handed to me."

"Right. Right," said Arborax. The 'boss doesn't tell me anything' was a card he knew well, as did all Heralds. I half wished I was operating under a similar ignorance; then I wouldn't know what was still ahead. "Let's go."

We set off at a fast walk, and I had to resist breaking into a run. Running would be a mistake. We had a long way to go. Mai had said a day's march, which probably meant around fifty miles — twelve hours constant travel at walking pace. We'd done two hours the day before but even so, trying to run that far would leave us next to dead, with the probable exception of Flin.

Every few minutes I'd turn and look at the Weapon. It was there every time but whether it was closer or further away I couldn't tell. There was no horizon in the corridor and the uniform sameness made judging distance all but impossible. Despite that, I wouldn't have bet a single penny on it sitting still.

It was three hours into our flight that I felt something prickle against my mystical senses and called a stop. "Flin," I said, "come here."

To my five mundane senses the corridor looked like it always did, but a wall of energy crackled against my mystical sixth.

"I feel it too," he said, then frowned. "But I can't guess what it is."

Neither could I and that left me with only one choice. With the Weapon advancing behind and this barrier in front, I opened my Third Eye and Saw.

Out of all the weapons available to Wizards, the Sight is perhaps the most potent. It lets you discover truth, absolute, undeniable, objective truth and that is a powerful thing indeed. There's a reason, though, that it is wise to ration its use. The Sight writes what you see forever onto your mind, impossible to forget, impossible to deny, impossible to rationalize. The human mind is simply not designed to withstand such an onslaught.

Over the last two days, I'd been using my Sight far too much.

What I saw this time felt like hot knives inside my skull. The energy wall was only the interface to something larger. For all that it was only a millimeter thick, it contained an entire world, a Nevernever realm shrunk and expanded all at once. And it was alien, very alien. A world of light and energy and not much else. It sucked at me, demanding my attention, my adoration. And— And—

"Close!" I shouted through gritted teeth and fell to my knees, panting. My Third Eye slammed shut and what I'd learn rolled around my head like a weirdly shaped ball. It should've been impossible to understand — an alien knowledge beyond human ken — but I did. I did understand; my Sight saw to that. I also knew what to do.

"Arborax," I said, my voice a touch hoarse. "How good are you at magic?" I knew he wasn't wizard level but he had some talent and training.

"I have mastered the first two Mysteries of the Second Path," he said, "and been inducted into the third."

"And what does that mean?"

Arborax came from the Towering Mountains, a kingdom originally founded by a Great Dragon. That Dragon taught his human servants some of his magic and that knowledge formed the basis of their mystical tradition. It approached things from a completely different angle than anything I knew.

"The Second Path is the Path of Names. The First is that of Authority and the Third is that of Will. Each Path has Five Mysteries, which must be mastered to advance."

This was getting me nowhere. "Just answer me this, can you make a light?"

Arborax nodded. "One of the tests for the First Mystery is to call the name of a candle flame." He cupped his hands and muttered a word under his breath. A flickering flame appeared between them, small but bright. To my mystical senses it felt almost like a minor fire evocation, tainted by an alien shimmer, but that was often the way. Magic was magic, no matter what mental model you used.

"Make it violet," I said.

He frowned and muttered a slightly different word. The candle flickered, guttered out for half a heartbeat and then returned, a pure violet flame.

"And red?"

He did that too, a flickering crimson tongue of fire that cast long shadows.

"Good." I turned to Flin. "I'm guessing you can do all this too, Flin?"

"Of course," said Flin and raised his hands. A tiny light appeared above each finger, ranging from deep red on the left to vivid violet on the right. It was an impressive display but I affected a nonchalant expression.

"Most impressive," I deadpanned. "Now listen. This is an intersect, a place where another realm has intruded on this one. It's not meant to be here. I wasn't informed it would be here. But we _can_ pass through."

What I'd Seen welled up in my mind but I pushed it down.

"Listen," I said. "We're all messengers. We've all been about, seen strange things, but this is alien. Alien. I'm not sure matter even exists as we understand it inside. Everything is light and that's how we'll move. Violet light to add velocity. Red light to scale it down. Remember that and follow me. Okay?"

Flin nodded easily enough but Arborax was more hesitant.

I looked at him and said, "You can do this. And we don't have much choice. If we stay here, the Valley will catch us."

"Can't we go up and around?" he said.

"No. Remember that world of blades we passed through? The circle we used looked to be the only safe place. If I punch us up, we'll be torn to pieces. We might be able to go down, deeper, but that could well be where the intersect is coming from. If not, it's sure to be something as bad. Now, are you ready?"

"Yes." He gripped the hilt of his sword. "I can do this."

"Good." I smiled at him. "Just remember: violet to accelerate, red to slow down. Tilt the light the direction you want to go."

Once I'd received a final set of nods, I stepped into the intersect and into a different world.

* * *

The transition was strange but not in the way I'd expected. I'd anticipated transforming into a ball of energy, but that did not happen. Instead, I felt like myself. My arms, my legs, my fingers and toes, they all seemed normal. Things only got weird when I looked down at where my body should have been and found it gone.

A half sphere of white light hung before me, smooth at first glance but covered with countless twisting and turning eddies when I looked closer. My hand went straight for my chest, almost without thought, and I felt my chest there, just how and where it should be. The eddies on the white sphere shifted as I moved, alien patterns which I somehow knew exactly matched the motion I'd just taken.

My first instinct had been correct: I'd not transformed. Some cosmic lens was set between me and this world, translating reality so we both could cope. With this only slightly worrying revelation, I turned my attention to the wider world.

The intersect stretched out before me, an almost flat plain that was also full of life. Pin wheels of violet light shot passed, their centres eternally falling inwards while their outer edges shot off photons. They hunted butterflies with tesseract shadows for wings, twisting squares within squares, which in turn fed upon Möbius knot flowers that shone with white light. Further away other, larger creatures prowled — predatory clifford toruses, rings which were not rings — and I kept a watchful eye on them in turn

In the distance I could just make out a hole in the world, my way forward. I gathered my will and said, "Anadaio!" Diffuse white light appeared all around and I twisted my will, tilting it towards violet. Acceleration gripped me and I shot forward.

It was the strangest sensation, like falling and riding in a car all at once. I nudged left and swung about. A second wall of energy came into view — the way I'd come. Two glowing orbs hung in front of it. One, who I guessed was Flin, shone green and gold. The second was silver and much smaller. It flickered like a candle in the wind, and I pegged it as Arborax.

I was slightly surprised when I heard them talking as I got near.

"There he is," said Flin. The words came in flickers of light on his body but I understood them all the same, the lens translating them as easily as everything else.

"Have you figured out moving?" I said.

"I have," said Flin and danced a figure of eight, his body changing colour as he went through the tight motions.

"I require an additional moment, thank you," said Arborax. His body turned a deep violet and he shot forward. A second later he flashed red, then green, then yellow. The compound result sent him shooting off to the side, and both Flin and I took off after him.

"Right, right," he said once I was in audible range. "I think I've got it now." And he did seem to be in better control.

"Follow me," I said and headed towards the out-door. That was when three clifford toruses left their lazy prowl and shot towards us, moving on an intercept course. "Run!"

I shot forward at breakneck speed, my magical light a brilliant violet. Flin and Arborax were just behind but so were the flashing impossible shapes that moved in pursuit.

"Faster," I said but Arborax couldn't go faster. His light flickered and looked fit to gutter out, and I was forced to decelerate to match him.

"Danny," said Arborax, sounding worried, though how flashes of light could sound worried I wasn't entirely sure. "The higher mathematical concepts appear to be gaining." And he was right. I could plot their vectors, see how and when they'd intercept us. It was well before the exit.

"Go on ahead," I said. "Flin go with him. I'll hold them off."

Flin flashed his assent and began shepherding Arborax towards the exit. I, meanwhile, turned to face my attackers.

There were three of them, violet at the front, red towards the back. They pulsed as they moved, insides becoming outsides only to reverse yet again. It was an impossible motion to perform in only three dimensions, but this was the deep Nevernever, eating breakfast at Milliways was the least of its accomplishments. They moved to meet me and I returned the favor.

Creating light is one of the most basic forms of magic. It is the first thing taught to many apprentices, and it _was_ the first thing my Master taught me, right after having me read Elementary Magic from cover to cover. I was good at it, even if I wouldn't describe myself as a master. Some photomancers could do scary things. I didn't rank among their company but got by.

"Anadaio!" I shouted and projected a beam of violet light. It hit the lead clifford torus and sent it shooting to the side. The two remaining toruses tore towards me, but I bent my will and dodged to the side. The first came back and this time I tried red light, so deep as to be almost infrared. Half its body ripped apart and photons spilt into the air, like a solar spring. Doing so cost me, however. While I was distracted, the remaining toruses slammed into my side and tore at my light. The lens translated it as vicious physical blows.

I swept about and brought my will to bear. A red lance stabbed at the nearest torus. It erupted, photons shooting in all directions. The third turned tail and fled, and I let it go. The First Law might not apply to creatures of the Nevernever but I knew better than to discard it entirely. Only madness lay that way.

The threat dealt with, I turned and shot towards my companions. They were waiting just before the exit-portal, ready to jump through if it became necessary but not doing so yet.

"Not so tough," I said as I entered speaking range. "Head on through."

They did so, and I took one last look around. Just as I did, a new light appeared by the entrance-door. It was a predatory flicker, cast in shades of black and dark blue. The mouth I only-sort-of-had went dry: dingonek. I ran.

* * *

The transition back to the corridor sent me staggering to the ground. Arborax lent me an arm and I took it thankfully. As soon as I was up, he could tell something was wrong. I confirmed it with a single word. "Dingonek."

Arborax grimaced and Flin turned pale.

"We run," said Flin and pointed towards our destination. My first instinct was to agree but it was a bad one. Even using a conservative estimate, we still had at least twenty-eight miles to go. That was more than a marathon. Flin could probably do that (hell, the sidhe were known to host parties which ran for days without stop) but I sure as hell couldn't.

"Can we set a trap?" asked Arborax, and it was an idea which deserved serious thought. This was a narrow corridor. It was a natural choke point. Add in the intersect and we might well have a chance.

Wards aren't my specialty. I could do them, if pressed, but it would take the kind of time we didn't have. "Flin?" I said.

"Faerie magic is ephemeral," said Flin, an annoyed expression on his face. "It is transitory. It doesn't like to stay put."

"I've seen sidhe do temporary enchantment."

"Yes," he said, face turning sour, "but my Lady Aunt has not reach such things in my tutelage."

"Right, right," I said, and then something struck me. "Circles!" Everyone looked at me so I said it again. "Circles. We don't need fancy wards, just big circles to block the passage. Arborax, use this chalk. Draw four big circles, three feet apart, cover the whole corridor. Flin, help me power them."

Like a well-oiled machine we sprang into action. Within seconds the first circle was drawn, located just in front of the intersect, and Flin placed his hand in the small of my back. That was when I hit the first problem.

In magic-circle theory there are two basic types: circles you stand inside to keep the world out, and circles you stand outside to keep something in. What I planned merged the two: a circle you stood outside to keep everything else out. There was a metaphysical contradiction there but I could see no reason why it shouldn't be possible. It wasn't as if the two circle types functioned differently on anything but a conceptual level.

Flin channeled power and I reached out with my mystical senses. The potential for a circle hung before me, a piece of plastic under tension, just waiting for the slightest push to jump into a new shape. I turned my mind inside out, grabbed the power I needed and closed. The circle sealed with a crack.

I let out a huff of breath and shook my head. "Harder than it looks."

In quick succession, Flin and I did the same to the second and fourth circle, and I added my special surprise to the third, a dab of blood.

"Now we run?" said Flin.

"Now we walk briskly."

* * *

Ten minutes later, almost to the tick, pain blazed through my skull. It felt like red-hot metal corkscrews and I knew its source: the spell-killing and will-poison tail of a dingonek.

"It's at the first circle," I said through gritted teeth, and broke my link to that circle. It would begin to fail now, but that was part of the plan.

We kept moving and three minutes later I grunted again. "Second." This time I didn't let go, I couldn't afford too. While stabbing and twisting pains drove deep into my skull, Flin grabbed me under one shoulder while Arborax took hold of the other. I just concentrated on holding on. It broke only two minutes later. I waited a single, agonizing heartbeat and then sent energy coursing down my blood link to the third circle. In my mind's eye, it closed with a flash.

"Got you, bastard," I muttered. The crazed dingonek attacked the circle from the inside, first with its claws but soon with everything — sabretooth fangs, horn, stinger and brute physical force. Each attack felt like a ringing blow against my head but they lacked the ruinous power of before. The Weapon fed the dingoneks power along tubes of energy, and my circle had severed this dingonek's connection like a hot knife through butter. If I left it for a few hours, the dingonek would turn into ectoplasmic mush but I doubted I had that much time. Luckily I had the perfect trick up my sleeve.

Flin and Arborax stopped moving and I drew my never-knife, a slender length of rune covered metal that almost hummed with potential power. I pointed it high in the air, gathered my will and said, "Anapiesma!" Energy jumped in the and the dingonek disappeared, hopefully to a world full of slicing swords.

"Now what?" said Arborax.

"We keep going," I said. "That won't be the last. More will come." Images of the thousands of dingoneks which had battled Winter filled my mind. They would have a new target now: us.

It was almost an hour before my fourth and final circle was assaulted. The only warning was a slight stirring against my mystical senses and then the circle was gone, ripped apart in seconds by a blizzard of strikes. The shock sent me face first into the floor, only a cut off grunt escaping my lips.

"Danny," said Arborax and dragged me up.

"Company," I said. "In coming."

The corridor had no horizon but things in the distance were still hard to see. I pulled my collapsible telescope from my pocket and took a look. At least a dozen shapes bounded towards me. They were surrounded by cloaks of whipping shadow but I could still make out the forms of dingoneks hidden underneath, oversized hunting cats, with rhino horns, sabretooth fangs and scorpion stingers.

"More circles?" said Flin. "They worked surprisingly well."

"There's too many of them," I said. "They broke through the fourth in seconds."

"But if we can trap them again, you can use your realm shift spell."

"I'll never catch them all," I said. "There's too many, and if I try that trick much more, I'm not going to be able to move, let alone fight."

"Perhaps there will be another intersect," said Arborax, looking ahead. "The last seemed to slow them down."

I froze. There was unlikely to be another but... I'd seen the intercept, seen it with my Sight. I knew exactly how it worked, how its magic interacted with the corridor, how it twisted and writhed to get in. Given a week's study, a good library and someone to sound ideas off, I could definitely replicate the effect. I raised my telescope and took another look at the onrushing dingoneks. I had maybe fifteen minutes. What was life without challenge?

First came two circles, one in front of the other and joined by a double line containing a multitude of hastily sketched runes. The first I made using my copper wire but for the second I used chalk. Both were large and solid and if worst came to worst, I might be able to hold out here long enough for Flin and Arborax to get away, though were exactly they'd go I had no idea.

I drew a pentagram inside the second circle and started laying out my ritual objects. Separation and the breach of the same was the key for this ritual, maybe with some summoning thrown in. My newly acquired obol served for Spirit. For Water I found a small bottle of cooking oil in my pack, poured out half and made up the difference with water. The two liquids separated within moments, a clear line in between. Once they had, I added a tiny bit of soap and watched the separation dissolve. For Fire I took one of my new clean white candles and cut it lengthwise in half. I did the same to an older blue and then bound them together with a piece of wire. The result was more than a little hodgepodge but would serve. Earth was perhaps the easiest. I used a small geode, a crystal cavern within a normal rock. Wind took me a moment as I sorted through possibilities, checking each against the magical equivalent of physics, but in the end I decided to cheat. I filled a child's party balloon with my own breath (the breath of a worldwalker, or so I told myself) and set it at the appropriate point.

With more time, I would have added more foci, items for the five senses and for mind, body and heart. But I didn't have time. I sat in the center of the second circle, within the heart of the pentacle where the forces of the universe were in perfect balance, and readied myself. On my first breath the second circle snapped closed. I took another and so did the first. On my third, the runes energized and power flowed into the ritual objects. On my fourth breath, I began.

With all the gravity of a king on a state occasion, I raised my never-knife and touched it to my forehead. The metal was cold and hard but I could feel the mystical potential there. It would be the heart of my spell, the ship my ritual objects would anchor in place.

My will was strong and the ritual focused it like a lens. Energy flowed at my command. The spell came together, part summoning, part Nevernever gateway, part some things I had no name for. Seconds became minutes and every minute drew the dingoneks closer, but I couldn't afford to rush. Rush and everything would fail. I drew in power from the tranquil pool formed by the circle and shunted it into my spell. I couldn't risk having Flin help with this. Summer's power was strong and self-willed; it might, no would, break a spell as delicate and experimental as this.

Finally I was done. I opened my eyes and my never-knife shone as brightly to them as it did to my mystical senses. The dingoneks were close, only a hundred meters away. I could see them all, a dozen beasts, a savage light glittering in a multitude of obsidian eyes. The sight set my heart racing but I stilled it with practiced ease. It was time.

"Katakon!"

The word was probably wrong, just something I remembered from skimming through my Ancient Greek dictionary. But it worked. The first circle filled with swords — moving swords, spinning swords, slashing swords. I had set out to summon a piece of the Nevernever and succeeded.

The lead dingoneks ran straight into it and the swords cut them to pieces — sliced, stabbed, chopped and God only knew what else. The others stopped in time, claws raising sparks on the floor. Through the occasional glimpse in the walls of whipping metal, I saw them staring, heads and tails swinging from side to side. It wouldn't hold them forever; my spell wouldn't last even half that long. I could only hope it lasted long enough.

I broke my circle and tried to rise but my legs were like jelly.

"Steady," said Arborax and lent me a hand to brace myself with. He turned to Flin. "Carry him. We need to move."

"No," I said but even my tongue felt weak. "Am fine."

"You're not," said Flin and the last thing I saw before he threw me over his shoulder, was Arborax collecting my ritual objects and packing them away.


	5. Chapter 5

_The Dresden Files is copyright Jim Butcher. This story is licensed under the Creative Commons as derivative, noncommercial fiction._

* * *

"We should wake him," said Flin.

"I'm not sure," replied Arborax.

"Don't bother," I said, then groaned. "I'm awake."

Flin put me down and I just managed to keep my feet. My legs felt like jelly but I was fairly sure the world was meant to jiggle like that.

"Where are we?"

"I think we're at the end," said Arborax and pointed at a large metal door. It blocked any further progress down the corridor, and a curling sigil marked its face. It took my sleep-addled mind a few seconds to recognize the sigil but when I did, my heart jumped. It was Dane's personal mark. Arborax was right; this _was_ the end.

"Any sign of dingoneks?" I asked and shot a look back. There was only empty corridor and a tiny silver dot which might have been my sword wall.

"I have kept watch," said Flin, "but your spell seems to have halted their advance."

"Good," I said and moved to just in front of the door. Ancient Mai covered his part in some detail so I knew what to do. Summoning my power, I sent it coursing into the sigil. It shone red, and a ribbon of power reached back towards me, tasting my mind, maybe even my soul. I kept my defenses down and let it go where it willed. After a few seconds it withdrew and the sigil faded to black. I'd been found worthy. With a deep rumble the door swung inwards and I walked through.

The first thing that struck me was the sheer size. It was huge. Area might be immaterial in the Nevernever but the immense scale was impressive nonetheless.

A glass wall stretched in a great arch above my head. It had to be fifty miles wide and ran for two hundred miles length ways. At the far end it narrowed to a spout, which continued on for a handful of miles before meeting a silvery barrier. In between it and me was jungle, miles upon miles of titanic trees, hanging vines and flowers which stood out as pinpricks of colour against the green. Light shone from overhead but there was no sun, just sourceless illumination which bore down with boundless energy from the ceiling. That light fed the foliage and warmed the fauna. Not a moment went by that some cry didn't roll out across the jungle — bovine bellows, the chirping calls of birds and the hunting shrieks of predators. In short it was a bottle, a gigantic glass bottle half filled with soil and left on its side. It was so big as to stagger comprehension, and I'd just entered by a hidden door in the base.

"Where are we?" said Arborax in a hushed voice. He stepped up beside me.

"Gentlemen," I said, scarcely louder. "Welcome to the Valley."

"Where!" said Arborax, rounding on me.

"The Valley," I said. "This is where we need to activate the artifact. There's a temple located towards the rear of the bottle."

"A temple!" Arborax looked ready to hit me.

"Yes. This is where the Valley really is, deep in the Nevernever. The interface is migratory but it leads here."

"Dragon bones!" he shouted. "Winter couldn't break in, the assembled might of the Unseelie Court led by the Winter Lady. What makes you think we can?"

"First," I said. "We're already in. And second, the Valley keeps the most combat capable of its forces towards the interface, the neck and cap of the bottle. We will be advancing through its rear lines."

"And how do you know this?"

"My briefing, it said—"

"It says we're all going to die!"

"We're not going to die," said Flin and gave a languid smile. "I've got the feeling that we are not the first to make this journey. Isn't that right, Danny?"

I licked my lips. "The White Council may have sent the Valley back to sleep in the past. As you know, we constantly monitor many Nevernever entities to make sure they stay asleep. Dark gods, immortals. The Gatekeeper is a member of the Senior Council."

Flin sent me an annoyingly smug expression before turning to Arborax. "There you have it. This task may be hard but it is possible."

He took a breath. "If you say so."

The door was located midway up a mountain, pressed against what would have been the bottom had the bottle been standing upright. It gave a good view of the jungle stretched out below. I looked down on an almost unbroken expanse of green but there were gaps in places — clearings formed around fallen trees, rocky outcrops, areas of burnt ground and other things I couldn't identify from my elevated perch. Perhaps the single largest break was a wide river, which ran from one side of the bottle to the other. It was a great curving sweep of dark water, though what sourced it or where it went I had no idea. I found what I was looking for in one of its gentle curves.

"That's where we're going," I said and pointed to a spire of gray stone which just broke the canopy. There looked to be an area of cleared ground around it, but the angle made it hard to see.

"It doesn't look that far," said Flin. He raised a hand to shade his eyes and leaned a few centimeters closer, as if it could make a difference over multiple miles.

"This is jungle," I said. "It will be slow going."

For the first time since the Gobi Desert, I pulled my spirit-compass from around my neck and began selecting sigils. First came 'Lock', then 'Nevernever' and finally 'Location'. I lined it up with the temple, pictured the spire in my mind and hit the go button. The needles spun and the compass buzzed in my hands, as if it contained a dozen angry bees. After a few seconds things settled down and a large gold needle locked onto the temple. I turned on the spot and watched the gold needle swing back and forth relative to myself. No matter which way I faced, however, it stayed pointed at our destination. That was good. The temple might be visible now but I had no illusion it would stay that way.

"Let's move."

Within twenty minutes we reached the treeline.

"You're our tree expert, Arborax," said Flin. "What are these?"

That earned him a dirty look but Arborax walked up to the nearest all the same. "Nothing like what we have at home," he said. "Not even in the Protectorates."

"It's not going to eat us then?"

It was Arborax turn to give a predatory smile. "This is the Nevernever; I certainly wouldn't rule that out."

We pushed forward and I used my compass to keep us mostly on course. To my mystical senses the place felt full of life and energy (just being near it was enough to soothe the aches in my mystical muscles) but I kept remembering what I'd seen with my Sight. Deep down there was a dark core to this place, like a predator trap. Death fueled it, generation after generation, layer after layer, feeding cycle after feeding cycle. Each added to that which came before. Features were taken and adapted. The creatures became deadlier and deadlier. It was—

With an effort of will I broke from my memories just in time for Flin to point and say, "What is that?"

I turned to look. It was a dull orange husk, empty and about the size of a cow. It hung from a tree a little to our left and was joined to the branch by a fungal growth. Arborax raised one ripped apart flap with his sword and I looked inside. Jelly covered it, a deep red substance which clung to the husk's walls and smelt like rotting meat.

"I don't know," I said, "but keep a lookout for more. It looks like trouble."

Hours passed. Strange birds hooted in the trees, birds of paradise with insectoid eyes and tongues which shot out like frogs. They seemed harmless but there were other things out there. Dingoneks, chipekwes, jago-ninis, inkanyambas, ngoubous... The list kept playing through my mind. All were terrible, dangerous creatures, manifestations of the Weapon's incredible power.

The air was humid and the dense undergrowth made it hard to move. I stopped and wiped sweat from my brow. A hanging vine tickled my neck and I knocked it away. Flin clung half way up a tree just ahead, and Arborax stood on a fallen log off to one side, his sword on his shoulder.

"We should think about stopping soon," said Arborax. "Flin may be superhuman but I'm not."

Even though I'd 'rested' over Flin's shoulder in the corridor, I couldn't help but nod. The trek was tiring, leaving my muscles aching, but not draining in the same way as the Gobi. It was just too full of life.

"We should venture just a little further," said Flin. "I can see something up ahead."

"If you think it truly important..." said Arborax.

"That I won't know unless we go."

"Just move."

We pushed on and stopped just inside a dense thicket of bushes whose twisted together branches formed a wall. Flin pointed through one of the small gaps and I knelt to have a look.

There was an immense tree on the other side. A dozen branches rose from a central core, each the size of a normal trunk. They twisted and writhed as they strove for the sky. From them hung two dozen dull orange husks but these weren't empty. These were still full.

As I watched, one of the husks began to squirm. Sharp claws pushed out from the inside and ripped through. Something long and cat-like fell in a shower of red jelly. It shook itself and the jelly sprayed in all directions. Underneath was the armored skin of a scaly anteater. At the back was the striking tail of a scorpion. On the head was a sharp, rhino like horn and a pair of sabretooth fangs. It was a dingonek. The tree was birthing dingoneks.

I pulled back and told the others what I'd seen.

"We knew the Valley was creating them," said Arborax. "There were too many and the Valley was replacing its losses too fast for it to be otherwise. That's not what confuses me. Why is it still birthing replacements? The battle should be over. The Valley — the interface part I mean. It followed us to the corridor."

"It will continue breeding soldiers until I put it to sleep," I said and tapped my dispatch bag.

"We better get on, then," said Flin. "Every second we waste means more resistance."

Spurred on by Flin's words, we managed another two hours trekking before calling a halt. The light in the sky never changed but I had a good watch. Once we found a suitable campsite, I walked a large circle around our camp, laying down a trail of energy as I did. Once the ends met, I knelt, set my hands against the ground and sealed it with an effort of will. The energy wall buzzed as it shot into the air, weak as circles went but still an impressive barrier. Safe inside its bounds, I rationed out the food and water and got some sleep.

* * *

My dreams were strange that night.

It was dark and I stood alone in the jungle. A black mist twisted around me.

"Join me," it whispered.

"What are you?" I said.

"I am powerful. I can make you powerful." The mist hung at the edge of my vision, no matter how I turned my head.

"What are you?"

"I am the place and all that is the place."

"You're a genius loci?" I said and paused. "You're Dane's Weapon?"

"I am me." The mist retreated and spectral spiders ran up my spine.

* * *

"The Valley knows we're here," I said as soon as I awoke.

Arborax groaned and rolled over. Flin raised an eyebrow.

"It spoke to me in my dreams." As a Wizard I knew not to underestimate dreams. Most were normal enough but not all, never all. This one was definitely the latter.

"What do we do about it?"

"I don't know," I said, though it galled me to admit it. There were exercises I could use to protect my mind and spells to protect my dreams but the former worked best against direct attacks and I hoped this whole adventure would be over before I needed to sleep again. "The best thing we can do is get this done."

While Arborax began the process of waking up, I walked around the circle I'd set up the night before, testing the energy with my mystical senses. It seemed intact but that wasn't the only threat. Almost anything could be waiting in the jungle, just beyond sight. Some of the shadows gave me a bad feeling, like a twisting knot in my stomach. Given that the Weapon knew we were here, it could easily have set watchers or left assassins ready to strike as soon as I dropped the circle.

"Danny," said Flin and turned to point at a patch of deep shadow hidden where two trees came together. He flicked his hands and light shot out, a blazing wave which tore away the shadow based illusions favored by the Weapon.

"Chipekwe," I whispered. It was a huge beast, the size of an elephant but shaped like a rhinoceros, save for the ears and tail. Its tail was long, like an alligator's, and suited its semi aquatic existence. The ears were large flaps, similar to what I'd expect to see on an Asian elephant.

Flin slid his light to the side and illuminated another, and another and another. There were thirteen in total, spaced fairly evenly around the circle.

"What are they waiting for?" said Flin, voice cast low.

I licked my lips. 'Join me.' Dane's Weapon had asked me that. I hadn't given an answer. Was it still waiting for one? It was waiting for something. Even if the chipekwes didn't have spell killing stingers like the dingoneks, there were a lot of them and this circle wasn't even anchored with chalk.

"Flin," I said as I eyed the nearest beast, "I don't suppose you've become a lot better at veils since we last met?" It wasn't completely impossible. His mastery of Summer fire was definitely on the up, tighter and more refined.

"My glamors are getting better," he said and gave me a half-hearted grin, "but my veils remain woefully inadequate, or so my Lady Aunt tells me. Anything I could do would be seen through."

Over where we had slept, Arborax propped himself upright and looked around. His eyes opened wide and he swore, a quite inventive expletive involving sheep and acts which were probably anatomically impossible.

"We shouldn't have camped in the forest," I said to myself.

"What choice did we have?" said Flin. "Stay in the corridor and get massacred from behind?"

"We should have pressed on, no matter how tired we were."

"Maybe."

"What are they?" said Arborax.

"Chipekwes." I pointed at the nearest. "According to what I've read, they kill elephants and eat their power. That's the native version, though, the African version before they were wiped out when the Valley rampaged across the Congo delta in the late nineteenth century."

I frowned slightly at that. If the Valley was the White Council's weapon, that meant we'd loosed it upon the Congo and I knew for a fact that dozens of native sorcerers had died. That violated the First Law, using magic to take a life. More than that, it was wrong. It lessened the universe, twisted the mind and let dark things grow in power. I put the thought to one side.

"You were there when Winter fought the Valley. The Valley isn't just a place; it's alive. I've seen its soul. It absorbs what it kills, growing stronger and deadlier, evolving. These versions will be worse."

"Worse than a dingonek?" said Arborax, face taught.

"No," I said, slowly shaking my head. "The dingoneks are the Valley's shock troops for a reason. They are incredible killers. Chipekwes will have other skills."

"But we still have no chance of fighting them head on?"

"Not against this number. I don't suppose you have a trick to get us through."

"Not unless they want to tell me their true names." From the look in the chipekwes' opal black eyes, I doubted that was happening. "But you do. Realm shift us. It's the only way, Danny. Use this circle. Drop us down or up a Nevernever realm. We use that to escape, then come back."

"Arborax," I said, "we're deep in the Nevernever. Capital D deep. You saw what the other realms were like. A world filled with constantly attacking swords and a place where matter doesn't really exist, just light. It's just not safe. The corridor and this bottle, they're islands of stability in a sea of chaos."

"And this is better?" said Flin and that was annoying. I'd been banking on him backing me up. "Do you think they will wait forever?"

He had a point, but so did I. "There's no guarantee we'll even be able to come back. The onion model is only a metaphor. The Nevernever realms are not nearly that uniform; they're more than nested spheres. We might go ten feet and never find our way back, end up somewhere else entirely with a stronger thematic link."

"Danny," said Arborax. "Just answer me this: are any of your reasons for not going worth more than what is around us. We can take precautions — keep the circle up as we move. It should allow us a few seconds grace if we end up somewhere truly dangerous. And if we can't find our way back here, we can try and get back to the corridor."

Reluctantly I had to nod. While we _might _face any number of dangers if we left, we _would _face a very significant danger if we stayed. "Stand together," I said. "Centre of the circle. I've never tried anything this big before; it could take a few seconds. Flin, I'm going to need some extra juice; if we do end up somewhere bad, I want the circle to stand as long as possible."

He nodded and placed his hand in the small of my back. Arborax raised his sword into a guard position and stood before us. I drew my never-knife, closed my eyes and reached out with my mystical senses, readying the spell.

The first thing I felt was life. The Weapon was full of it. Even with my reach contained and bounded by the circle, there was more than I could possibly need. The very air buzzed. I pulled that energy in, forging it into a spell using my knife as a focus. Flin's power started to flow, a raw stream of fiery life, and I split of a part of my mind, tasking it with channeling this new power into the circle.

I opened my eyes, readying my will for the final push. The circle blazed with fire, flames which burnt like creeping ferns. The chipekwes were reduced to shadow demons. I pointed my never-knife straight up at the sky (up was good, up was back towards 'normal') and cried, "Anapiesma!"

The spell leapt from my knife, spreading out to cover and infuse the circle near instantly. It took hold, sinking thousands of tiny hooks into local Never-space, and released its stored energy. Magic crackled against my senses, moving with the kind of oomph I seldom felt from my spells. The circle shuddered, priming for the moment it would shift across realms, and slammed into an immovable wall.

I screamed as backlashing power rebounded. My circle shattered. Radiant lines of flowers exploded from the earth, going from bud to bloom in a split second. The magic tore through my mind, shattering my will like brittle iron and running like wild-fire through what remained. If my magic hadn't been so infused with Seelie Power it would have surely killed me. As it was I hit the ground, my very soul flayed and laid bare.

The pain was incredible and I crushed my eyes shut in a futile attempt to block it out. It would be so easy to collapse, to just stay down. But I couldn't do that. The circle was gone, my circle, the wall of energy which kept the chipekwes at bay. I surged out with my will, with my mystical senses. And hit a wall. My mind flashed along it, searching for gap or give, but there was none. I opened my eyes and saw the chipekwes. They were making the wall, a barrier of focused will designed to do only one thing: keep us trapped. In that panic filled moment I did a truly stupid thing and opened my eyes again, my Sight.

The chipekwes were realer than before, their hides thicker, their horns sharper, their eyes twice shined opals. Superimposed over each was a spectral elephant, gray shades which tasted of stagnant swamp water. Arteries of black power fed them, reaching up from the Weapon's floor. Beneath that floor were the spiritual skeletons of countless creatures, layer after layer, feeding cycle after feeding cycle. It went on forever, older than humanity, older than—

With an effort I forced my Sight closed and thrust my head down into the rich fertile soil. It was real, physical. I breathed in its scents. It wasn't unadulterated truth shot directly into my brain with all the subtlety of a fire hose.

"Trapped," I said in between gasping breaths. "The chipekwes have made a wall, some kind of circle composed entirely of focused will. I can't shift us up or down a level."

"Well," said Flin, "this does complicate things, does it not?"

* * *

With our escape forestalled and the chipekwes seemingly content to wait, we sat down for a hearty breakfast. I had some cereal bars as part of my rations and even Flin partook.

"When I was a changeling cereal came in bowls," he said, looking at his half eaten bar. "It normally involved milk." But if he had any serious complaints, he didn't share them.

Once we were sated, I grabbed a nearby stick and drew a circle on the ground. "We're trapped," I said. "This is their circle. We can't get out and, while they keep it up at least, they can't get in."

"Can we go under or over?" said Arborax.

"No," I said. "A circle isn't just a line. It's a big mystical thing. It's a definition written upon the universe, inside is in, outside is out. That's why I can't realm shift us. And that brings me to the second problem." I drew hash lines outside the circle. "We're sealed in, magically speaking. The energy inside this circle is all we have. Every spell we cast weakens that energy, transforms it into a form we can't readily access. Too many and we won't be casting at all. Worse still, I used most of what's available trying to realm shift us. It's flowers now." I waved a hand to the starburst of flowers radiating out from the center of the circle.

"Can we break their circle, then? Use the energy we have to smash it."

The answer to that was a big maybe. "There are two ways to break a circle," I said. "If you have free will, like me and you, breaching the barrier with something physical will do it. If it's a basic circle, that's as easy as throwing a pebble but circles can also be made to stop physical matter."

"And the chipekwes' circle is that type?"

"From what I saw with my Sight, yes."

"And the second method?"

"If you don't have free will, like Flin or a demon or most things from the Nevernever really, then you need to overpower it. Flaws in its construction make that easier but the basic method is always the same: throw so much energy at it that the circle or its caster fails."

"Is that's what dingoneks do?"

"Sort of. Their stingers distort spells, like the old model Warden Swords. If you're still connected to the circle, they cause you pain until you can't concentrate anymore. If you aren't, they attack the circle's magic until it comes apart at the seams. It's the second type of assault done very smart."

Arborax sighed. "Almost makes me wish we had a dingonek."

I froze in place and turned to look at Flin. "Do you think..."

"It might work," he said. "Summoning is a mortal only thing but from what I know from the, let us say the other end, it should work. But you'd need something to force the summoning, a name, a piece of dingonek."

"Blood?" I said as I drew my air-dagger. It glimmered in the sun. I turned to Arborax. "Three days ago Flin and I fought a dingonek on the Giant's Causeway. Flin got away but I fought it to the death and stabbed it through the eye. There should be something..." I turned the dagger until the light caught the runes lining the blade. "There. Blood or body matter of some sort."

"Old blood from a dead dingonek?" Flin shook his head. "If you had let it live, maybe, but you killed it. You might be able to summon its corpse but not with the resources here. The best we can hope for is a very forceful invitation."

"But is it really dead?" I said and beamed. "Oh, I destroyed that particular dingonek but remember Winter? The dingoneks are drones, powered by the Valley. They are extensions of its will, not true independent beings. What we have here is, in effect, one of the Valley's fingers. There's no way the entire Valley could show up so we will get the part of it which best fits the ritual: Another dingonek."

"It might work," said Flin but he clearly wasn't convinced.

"It will," I said. "I know it will. Look, I'm not strong as wizards go, and I'm no maestro at controlling every iota of energy I shunt around either, but this kind of thing? This, I'm good at." I could see how the spell would unfold in my mind, half theory work from my studies and half my bone deep instinct for all things Nevernever, which summoning most assuredly was.

"Wait," said Arborax as he looked between us, dawning horror in his voice and on his face, "you're serious! I was joking. This plan is insane. It will rip us apart!"

"He does have a point, Danny."

"We'll just have to manage it. Remember, my summoning circle will cut its magical umbilical cord, and the chipekwes' may or may not do the same. It will be weak and confused. It will panic, and not be thinking. We just need to guide that panic in the direction we want."

* * *

"Are you sure about this, Danny?" said Flin, his face deadly serious for once.

"I have to be."

First came the circle. My copper wire was gone, used to form my sword wall, and that presented a small but surmountable problem. Instead I cut my circle into the ground, forming a moat three inches wide and ten deep. Absence worked as well as substance for things like this, perhaps better since I was aiming to bind part of a creature within itself.

Once I was done and had thrice checked my work, I moved onto the next step: the pentacle. The best summoning rituals used two, one inside and one out. The inside linked to the creature you intended to summon, the outside to you — things to strengthen and support your will and by extension every stage of the summoning process from calling to binding. Given the plan, the latter could probably be skipped.

As the master and purest element, my air-dagger and its bloody marks went at the spirit point. Water came next and I set down a shark's tooth. It took a bit of searching but I finally found something suitable for fire: a one inch long sculpture of a dragon, wrought in copper. For earth I used a tiger's claw, bought on the downlow from a traditional Chinese medical shop six months before; sometimes my pockets surprised even me. That just left wind and for that I used an only slightly crushed hawk's feather. They were predator elements all, united in common purpose by the blood and my will.

With a spark of energy, I closed my circle and threw up my hands, my never-knife proffered like a conductor's baton.

"Hunter of shadows and still water, hear me," I yelled in my mother tongue, drawing the smallest amount of power I possibly could while still having a chance at summoning. "Servant of the Valley, Servant of Dane's Weapon, I call you. I am Daniel Archdale, Wizard of the White Council, and command you to appear before me. Dingonek, Dingonek, Dingonek, Dane's Weapon, Dane's Weapon, Dane's Weapon! I summon thee!"

Shadows exploded within the circle, and a dingonek burst from the darkness. It slammed into the invisible wall claws first and a shower of sparks shot up to block its path. I grunted in response but held on. Circles are intrinsically strong constructs and hard to break. Until and unless the dingonek used its will-poison tail, I could hold.

It struck again and I met its advance, my will against its muscles. Magic crackled in the air and the available levels dropped still further. It stared at me with rage filled eyes and that was my mark. I turned and ran, as fast as I could. Vines and roots tried to trip me but I jumped each in turn. Then I threw myself to the ground, rolled and came to rest behind a tall tree. "Now Flin!"

Even before I finished my cry, he started casting and the circle's remaining magic dropped a dozen notches. I twisted about to see. Timing was vital.

A flickering hologram appeared on the far side of the summoning circle. It was a crude glamor, clearly artificial but equally clearly me, my short brown hair, narrow face and almost grey-blue eyes. The dingonek sensed the change and whirled about. It hiss-roared a challenge and the sound sent goosebumps down my skin. Normally its magic would have let it see through such a poultry deception but it was panicked, not thinking and cut off from its master. It tried to gore the illusion with its horn, every inch of its body radiating rage, but was stopped by the circle. The collision sounded like shearing metal but I held on, my will infusing the circle, keeping it sure and strong.

Then the moment I'd been waiting for occurred. It slashed out with its tail, its spell-killing scorpion stinger. The impact felt like red hot nails driven directly into my skull and necrotic black energy shot through the circle, like the shatter marks of a damaged yet not completely broken window. I let the circle go.

The dingonek sprung free and leapt right at Flin's illusion, but he'd been waiting just for this. The illusion flickered out and reappeared, just before the outer circle, the barrier of focused will emanating from the chipekwes. The available magic dropped to almost nothing, the swishing dregs at the bottom of the gas-can, and even they were fast going, sucked up to fuel Flin's illusion.

Screaming its almost incalculable rage at being once more denied, the dingonek charged. The illusionary me vanished at the last possible moment and the dingonek hit the circle horn first. Rolling thunder boomed but the circle held. The dingonek slashed out with its tail, just as I'd trained it to do in the summoning circle, and the very air seemed to shatter. Black cracks shone with dark power and the nearest chipekwe fell to the ground, looking like a punch-drunk boxer. The dingonek struck again and again, its tail raining down spell-death and will-poison both. Another chipekwe tottered and collapsed, almost-black blood trailing down from beneath its elephantine ear flaps. The others were reacting now, tensing and releasing almost bovine noises of confusion and pain. The dingonek struck one final time and it was one time too many. The black shatter lines exploded and the entire construct of will collapsed.

Magic rushed in from all sides, sweet life, water to a man trapped in a desert. I drank it in.

Flin flicked out his hand and another illusionary me appeared, barely a flicker of colour. It flew through the trees with smooth inhuman motion, but the dingonek didn't care. It hiss-roared and gave chase, its powerful limbs throwing it across the ground.

"Move," I said and pushed myself up. I looked to where the remains of my summoning circle lay and flicked out my hand, muttering in Ancient Greek as I did. Wind caught my air-dagger and it flashed straight to my hand. The grip felt strong and sure under my fingers, and I looked about. The dingonek was gone but the chipekwes weren't. To a beast they looked dazed but that wouldn't last forever.

Flin rose from where I could just see him, hiding in a hollow of the ground, and Arborax did likewise from behind a tree further away. I grabbed my already prepared pack and sprinted for freedom. The great head of a chipekwe turned to look at me as I tore passed but it could do no more. Blood rolled from its ears and the corners of its eyes. It was a broken creature.

I made it passed and Arborax was just behind me, breathing heavily. Flin drew level and then ahead, moving with the easy grace of the sidhe. "This way," he said and pointed. I trusted him to find the best route and took off in the direction he pointed. We didn't stop for almost forty minutes.

* * *

When we at last halted, even Flin looked winded. Arborax and I were barely standing, taking ragged breaths and gulps of water.

After a few minutes Arborax said, "Are they following us? Did we make it?"

I turned and looked but couldn't see anything. Flin conjured his magical light and played it across the trees, but no otherwise hidden creatures appeared.

"We seem to be," said Flin, "but I do not think we should stop to rest again."

I nodded and forced myself to stand tall. "We end this today."

My spirit-compass buzzed in my hands as I aligned it to the proper course. We'd not been running in the correct direction, but neither had we been going backwards. "That way," I said, pointing towards a large tree which was covered with red and yellow flowers, thick petaled blooms which exuded an almost physical wave of pollen; just looking at them made me want to sneeze. "I don't know how far, but if we keep this course we cannot miss it."


	6. Chapter 6

_The Dresden Files is copyright Jim Butcher. This story is licensed under the Creative Commons as derivative, noncommercial fiction._

* * *

As we walked, Flin, Arborax and I each kept a careful eye on the jungle. All my talk of 'advancing through the rear lines' was clearly overly optimistic. The Weapon knew we were here. It could send combat forces to intercept us if it decided to. Of course, it might have other things in mind.

_Join me..._

"Danny," said Arborax as we approached a huge natural monolith. It stood almost fifty meters high and the Weapon's alien birds nested in the crevices. I thought there might be the remains of runic engravings on its multitude of faces but they were faded and covered with guano. "During the summoning ritual, I understood most of what you said but what is a 'Dane's Weapon'." The English words sounded odd and out-of-place in his lilted Waytalk.

"You speak English?" I said, avoiding the question. I'd rather hoped he'd not picked up on that little detail.

"Some," he said. "It is the dominant language of Earth is it not?"

"I'm sure there are some who'd disagree," I said, thinking of my six months fostered in France, "but more or less."

"As I thought, but the words?"

"Just a name I thought appropriate. Names are important in summoning."

"That they are." Arborax returned his attention to the jungle and I did the same, my eyes sweeping over hanging vines of deepest emerald, large thick leaves which dripped with moisture and flowers of so deep a red as to make the surrounding foliage look faded and lackluster. I also saw Flin, a cat-like smile just touching his lips. His ears had clearly been busy.

We pushed on. Hours passed but the light did not change. There was no day or night in Dane's bottle garden. In such environments, you needed to do something to pass the time.

"Thirteen sidhe knights" said Flin. "In armor of hardened silver and with blades made in the spell-forges of Avalon."

"The dragon prince Azarax," said Arborax.

"Every warden the White Council can find," I said.

"Eldest Gruff and a score of his brothers," said Flin.

"The Augur, the Dragonmaster and the King," said Arborax.

"At the moment I'd settle for a squad of Templars," I said.

Arborax frowned and Flin turned an annoyed expression on me. "Some things you just don't joke about, Danny," he said. "I met a Knight Templar once. She called me a demon and threatened to cut me open with her iron sword. Iron! She didn't, of course. Even those fanatics aren't insane enough to kill an emissary of Summer. But she would've if she thought she could have gotten away with it."

"You're probably right." I'd never met a Templar but I knew White Council Heralds who had. 'The witch does not speak to me' was apparently something of a favored line. "The whole Senior Council, then."

Flin and Arborax nodded their heads but the 'who would make good help' game was clearly over. It wasn't a great loss. It would've ended soon anyway.

Ahead the tangled trees broke apart and I saw it. A temple thrust up into the air. It was made of gray stone and almost Hindu in appearance. For most of its prodigious height, it resembled a steep stepped pyramid, each level covered with carved statues, mostly geometric shapes but with guardian monsters at the corners. The bottom level, though, was a wall, a forty-foot expanse of shear stone, with no windows or decorations and only one entrance. In front of that cavernous portal lay a jago-nini, almost seventy feet of magical brachiosaurus. Apart from a few points around the high edges, it completely blocked the way.

Flin motioned off to one side and we took cover.

"So close," said Arborax, his face taught.

"The jago-nini?" I said.

He nodded.

"Are they really that bad?" It was almost a silly question but one I had to ask. I'd not seen the jago-ninis in action at the Winter battle.

Flin nodded. "Over two long days I watched the high sidhe try to breakthrough over ten times. We're talking about people with a 'the' in front of their name. Each time a jago-nini would lumber into view, place itself to block the attack and just stand there. Magic doesn't affect them and their size makes purely physical assaults scarcely better. The Winter Lady turned her full and unadulterated might against one and it did nothing at all. Spells able to flash freeze a dozen dingoneks just washed off."

"Where they at the Glittering Plains?" I asked Arborax, but he shook his head.

"That battle was mostly dingoneks with only a few stranger things. I doubt we would have triumphed had they been there."

"If they're that powerful why didn't the Valley use them more?" I said. "If they're completely immune to magic and resistant to physical attacks, why not just march right through Winter's lines?" A thought occurred to me. "Did they ever leave the Valley itself?"

"You're thinking their power only works on Valley soil?" said Flin, then shook his head. "No, I'm afraid that explanation doesn't work. They did leave the Valley, though never particularly far."

The idea just didn't sit right with me. "There are other creatures immune to magic," I said, "but there is always a catch, some flaw. Ogres are resistant but that protection evaporates in the face of iron. The oldest of Mab's fletches are immune but only if you fear them. Have courage and they're as vulnerable as anything else."

"You want to, ah, procure some liquid courage and charge the jago-nini?" said Flin, a note of mockery in his voice. "I have to say, Danny, I do not think highly of this plan."

"Don't be stupid," I said. "It was an example. We just need to know the weakness for these creatures."

"If there immunity is from the Valley we could lock it in a circle," said Arborax. "Cut off, it might fade."

From a purely theoretical perspective that wasn't a bad idea. The Weapon provided power to its creatures along umbilical cords of dark energy. Cut off, all but the most powerful would burn through their internal stocks and die. There were several large problems, however. "No way can I power a circle around the entire temple," I said, "not even if Flin helps. If it moves away from the door, I could use a smaller circle, but if it did that I wouldn't need to use a circle at all." This was getting us nowhere. "Let's put the jago-nini to one side for a moment. What other options do we have?"

"Up the wall?" said Arborax. "It will either move to stop us, in which case our options open up, or do nothing and we can climb the wall unopposed."

Flin nodded at the possibility but I was more wary. I drew my collapsible telescope and elbow walked through the dense foliage, until the temple was again in sight. "That wall has to be at least forty feet," I said, as I scanned the shear lower section of the temple. "No way can I climb that. Magic maybe. I could use a wind spell to throw us up, but I'd give even odds that we break every bone in our bodies."

"Knock a hole?" suggested Flin.

"Maybe," I said. "Some earth magic to rip the stone apart or water magic to dissolve it. There might be defenses, though. A moment..."

I rolled half over and drew my never-knife. The blade almost hummed in my hand. It was past needing a ritual cleansing, but there would be time for that later, when my mission was over and terrible creatures were no longer trying to kill me. I pointed my knife at the temple and readied the flows of magic in my mind.

"Aphiko."

The word was a whisper to my normal cry, but this was subtle magic, the magic of spirit and the Nevernever. The spell bore my mystical senses forward, extending my reach. I touched the temple wall with all the force of the morning mist and jerked back, burnt.

"Damn, damn, damn," I said and rather pointlessly sucked my thumb. "That hurt."

"What?" said Flin.

"Protections on the walls. Not wards, thank God. You need thresholds to have serious wards. But there is magic in those stones. I'd be very surprised if I could force my way through."

"Will the entranceway have similar protections?" said Arborax.

"Protections, I can't say, but they won't be similar. The magic is in the stones. If you want magic to last you need to anchor it to something. A threshold does that for wards, but you can't hang lasting enchantment on empty air. If I had to guess, the jago-nini is the protections."

"So we're back to our first problem," said Arborax and gave the temple an evil-eye. "Getting past the beast. What do you know about them?"

"Not a lot," I said. "They have many names. Amali, n'yamala, jago-nini and mokele-mbembe. The last means 'one who stops the flow of rivers'. They were rare even before the Valley attacked the Congo and may be completely extinct now. They lived in the Nevernever but could cross over at rivers and lakes, mostly in the Congo area. Some of the native tribes believed them to be spirits, others strange animals, and most were reluctant to discuss the matter with outsiders, their native sorcerers especially so. There was a belief that doing so brought death or great misfortune. Oh, and, their flesh is meant to be poisonous if eaten."

"Surely there must be something else," said Flin.

I nodded. "There was one legend in the records but it's very much soft mythology, the kind created and told by people who've never even heard of the Nevernever. It's to do with how the 'mokele-mbembe' got its name."

Flin rolled his hand in a get-on-with-it motion and I rolled my eyes right back.

"Once, long ago, an unnamed thing lived in a hidden pool. It was a protean power, as large or small as it wished, able to take on and shed attributes to suit its purpose. It lived in its pool for many centuries, undisturbed and undiscovered, but all things change. Hunters from a Congo tribe found its pool and fished at its shores. This greatly angered the unnamed thing and it rose up to drive them off.

"The hunters ran but the unnamed thing was not satisfied. It chased them back to their village and swum up the river. There it greatly increased its size until the river itself ceased to flow.

"Without the river the tribe was destitute. They sent their best warriors and hunters to face the beast but the nameless thing was formless and could neither be hurt nor killed. The tribe's priests prayed to Khonvouma, their chief god and a great hunter, and he sent the thunder god Gor to force the Mokele-mbembe to move. Gor came in the form of a great elephant but the nameless thing stood against even him.

"Desperate, the priests prayed to Arebati, their moon god and probably a Terminus Lord of the Moon Shadow these days. He was wise and knew many things and told the men of the tribe what to do.

"The tribe sent their wisest men and women to the nameless thing, people who had seen many things and named many children. They looked at the monster and in its protean form they saw unity and purpose.

"'You are not nameless', they said. 'We name you Mokele-mbembe.' And with that the Mokele-mbembe lost its formless form and became a gigantic beast, large enough to block an entire river.

"Its power remained great but it was no longer undefeatable. The tribe's warriors came in a great host and attacked the Mokele-mbembe with arrows and spears. They hurt it greatly and forced it to move. Doing so caused the river to come crashing back. In that great torrent of water the Mokele-mbembe escaped but the tribe was saved."

"Not much to go on," said Flin.

"As I said, soft mythology. A third of it was probably made up by the man writing it down and another third by the native storyteller. If we're extremely lucky, the remainder might have some truth to it." I shook my head. "Back to the problem: Maybe magic isn't the correct way to go about this. You said it was resistant to physical attacks, not immune?"

"Yes," said Flin. That was a positive response but I could almost taste the 'but' coming. "The high sidhe did manage to make a few small cuts, but they healed quickly and the jago-ninis barely seemed to notice. At the very least, they didn't move an inch."

"And let me guess, some of those high sidhe are stronger than all of us put together."

"Oh certainly. I come from the line of the Oak King. We are gifted with strength, stamina and powerful magic, but not to the truly mythical levels of some of my kin. My nature is more balanced than theirs."

"So having Arborax hit it with his sword is not an option," I said, mostly to myself. "I don't suppose either of you have past experience fighting other types of gigantic, magic immune, super tough creatures you're not sharing?"

"Alas I do not," said Flin, false despair plastering his face like Clown makeup. "But Arborax does. Dragons are most of those things, though they are only resistant to magic, not immune. What do you do when one goes wild, Arborax?"

"They don't go 'wild'," said Arborax, his lilting words a touched clipped. "One of the Great Gifts given to us by our Lord is the Mantle of Dominion. It allows the Dragonmaster to breed dragons, and forms the legitimizing authority for First Path magic against dragons."

"But you must have thought how to fight yourself," I said, catching on to where Flin was going. "Dynastic struggles, insurrection, just plain criminals." I knew the White Council had such plans, though as an Ordained Herald and not a Warden I was only on the periphery of such things.

Looking more than slightly pained, Arborax nodded his head. "In such circumstances, the King would summon the Dragon Princes and they would bring the power of their mounts and magic against the criminal. Any such treasonous enterprise would have far fewer dragons than the legitimate forces of the King."

And if he didn't, I thought to myself. Why, then the King's the treasonous one and the rebelling nobles are the justified restorers of order. I didn't say that aloud, of course, not least because more than one Merlin had suffered a similar fate. Instead I asked, "And how would two Dragon Princes fight?"

"As Flin said, dragons are resistant to magic," said Arborax, "not immune. Flame and spell are effective weapons. Attempting to dominate the mind of the opposing beast is a viable tactic. A Dragon Prince might call upon wind or earth to force his opponent to the ground. If all else fails, two dragons will engage and fight tooth and claw."

"No giant lances?" I said, with a half-smile.

"No. That is neither practical nor effective, and quite possibly impossible."

Flin's eyes sparkled with sudden insight. "So," he said. "We're agreed that dragons are not the answer to our problems. Luckily this intellectual detour has sparked the genius that is my mind, and I have come up with a plan." He told me. It was crazy and would never work. We set to it.

* * *

First we needed a tree. You'd think that would be easy, located as we were in a jungle so verdant that it could only exist in the Nevernever. You'd think that but be wrong.

Flin's plan called for a long straight trunk and while the Weapon provided many trees they were tangled things. Few had a recognizable central trunk, and those that did were bent and twisted as if frozen in some obscene dance.

Finally, though, Arborax shouted, "Got one."

"A bit bigger than I'd like," I said, staring up at it. It was about twenty feet tall and the trunk was comparatively thin. I doubted I could put my arms around it, but Arborax and I working together probably could. It did have a well-defined trunk, though, straight and true, and that more than made up for any other deficits. "Stand back."

While Flin and Arborax retreated to a safe distance, I drew my air-dagger. Air is the element of motion. That means it lends itself quite easily to chopping things up. Still, this was more than I normally attempted. I closed my eyes, gathered the energy I'd need and slashed out. "Dikhoto!"

Moving that much energy around made my head spin and I was no spring lamb to start with. Despite that, my spell shot forward with enough power to slice clean through the trunk. Wood groaned and I started running. The tree crashed to the jungle floor in a thunder of snapping branches and frenzied animal cries. At the same moment, I threw myself to the ground and covered my head.

When the world stopped shaking, I looked up and said, "Everyone okay?"

"I am well," said Arborax.

"Of course I'm uninjured," said Flin.

"Good. Let's get to work."

Now we had the tree, stage two was stripping off all the extra branches and the bark. It was a lot of work but Flin and I helped things along with some careful magic. Within a few hours, there was a high pile of leaves, bark and branches off to one side and a naked trunk on the ground. Bereft of its coverings, the trunk was an almost ghostly white.

"Have you worked out the formulae?" asked Flin as we stood admiring our work.

"I think so," I said and nodded. Magical formulae had been much on my mind while we worked. "We want five sequences, arranged lengthwise along the trunk, in the shape of a pentacle." I moved to the wide end of the trunk and knelt down. My air blade had done a clean job and the base was a perfectly flat plain. There were no rings, I noticed, just unadorned wood. Using my air-dagger I scored a pentagram, the spirit point facing up. "Five sequences, each identical, one for each point, running along the trunk. Air and motion runes here." I tapped the end closest to the pentagram. "Control runes here." I tapped a bit further towards the pointed end. "And power storage here." I tapped the halfway point.

"That many?" said Arborax.

"I need it," I said. "No way can I pull off Flin's plan without some heavy-duty help. Rune formulae can provide that. They support magic like casting foci, guiding the energies and taking up some of the mental load. I'll do the first one and then align the energies. While I'm doing that, you and Flin can carve the other four. It will be slow at first but once I've done it once, the other four should go quickly."

I received two nods in reply and set to work. Runes and sigils of wind and motion came first. Each cut with my air-dagger was a ritual motion, each an independent but connected act of will. The formulae flowed from my mind, down my arm and into the wood. Slowly, inch by inch, minute by minute I worked my way down the top of the tree trunk, on a line with the spirit point of my pentacle.

As I went, air and motion shifted to runes of control and limitation. When the change was done, I swapped my air-dagger for my never-knife. They would benefit from its subtle power. I kept going and the runes shifted again, this time to marks of power storage and containment.

When I was at last done, I stood up and let out a huff of breath. My fingers ached but there was pleasure to the pain. This was pain born of creation not destruction.

"Arborax," I said and he looked up from where he was honing his sword. "I'll need five silver coins, one for each point. Power containment cannot be done with symbols alone."

He set down his sword and pulled his coin pouch from his waste. "Any denomination in particular?"

"Big as you can," I said, "but they must be identical. If you can't do that, we'll need to melt several smaller coins down."

"I can do five," he said, "just." He held out his hand, containing five large silver coins, two inches wide and thick with it.

"Good. These will do fine." I moved to the middle of the trunk. The runes ended there, in a half circle just large enough to fit the coin. I dug a shallow pit and forced the coin into place. It shone in the sun, a silver disc.

"Flin, Arborax," I said, "this is the rune sequence. Do you think you can copy it?"

"Oh I should think so," said Flin and a cat-like smile sloped onto his face.

"I don't know," said Arborax and his voice was almost the inverse of Flin's. "Detailed carving is not something I've ever done."

"Sit this one out, then," I said. "Don't worry, but this is something that has to be done right. Flin, get started. Use some of that sidhe grace. Arborax keep watch; I'm going to be dead to the world while I align the energies."

Arborax went back to his sword and propped himself up on a low branch. Flin produced as small silver knife and began carving the water point formulae. I sat myself down in front of the pentacle, touched my never-knife to my forehead and shut my eyes.

Aligning energies is something every apprentice learns to do and I'm no exception, even if it did take me longer than most. It's vital to virtually all magic. It's how you make focus items and the most powerful ritual objects. My old master tried in vain to teach me the technique for years before we both stumbled upon the answer: do it in the Nevernever. It's in the Nevernever that my mystical senses are at their sharpest and it's in the Nevernever that I feel at one with the universe.

I did exactly that now, letting my mind slip out and cosmic oneness flow in. Here in the Nevernever everything was connected and everything was alive. I could feel the runes and sigils that formed my spell formulae. They hung in potentia, like a circle drawn but not yet energized. I drew in a breath and drew in energy at the same time. The Weapon's potent power burnt in my mind, like a muscle exercised to just the point of strain. Then I sent it out, power and breath both. The runes blazed in my mind's eye as the energy ran through them, giving them form and purpose and meaning. For three long seconds they shone, but nothing can last forever. When my breath gave out and my gathered power dwindled, they too dimmed.

For a moment I hung still, content with the perfect balance the bottom of the ebb gave me, but I had a task to do. Again I gathered breath and power, and again I sent them out, defining the magical purpose and potential of each rune and sigil, both individually and as part of a greater whole. I did it again and again. It was hypnotic, and I sat like a lone rock in the river of time: content to let it flow me by.

An indeterminate amount of time later I opened my eyes. Flin was forcing a silver coin into place but he wasn't doing so at the apex of the water point formulae; it was air. I stood and stretched. Three complete lines of runes covered the top of the trunk, one by me and two by Flin. His work was perfect, fluid when curved, straight when called for and of a uniform depth and width. Though it galled me to admit it, Flin's carving was several notches above my own.

"And done," he said. "We'll need to turn the tree if I'm to reach the earth and fire points."

* * *

It took several hours but part three of Flin's plan was at last done. Five lines of runes ran along the ghost-white tree trunk and they glimmered with awakened energy. It took weeks to properly align the energies of an enchanted object, but for a one-shot weapon, a few hours would suffice.

"Let's get it into position," said Flin.

"Not yet," said Arborax. "I want to do something to help."

"Hum?" Flin raised an eyebrow.

"This weapon deserves a name. A name will cement its energies and make the casting easier, isn't that right Danny?"

I nodded my head. "A name is a powerful thing."

"We are agreed." Arborax placed the point of his sword on the ground and walked a large circle around the tree trunk. When the circle was joined, he cut his thumb and smeared the blood on the line. It closed with a snap of energy. He then began to chant in the alien language I'd heard him use once before, when he created the Company of the Three Heralds.

The circle cut off my mystical senses but magic was clearly being done. The words were almost poetic, full of the lilting tilt that Arborax possessed even when speaking Waytalk. Words spilled over words for almost a minute before things came to a close. As before he finished in Waytalk. "I name you," he cried. "I name you. I name you Quirisax!"

He broke the circle and a wave of magic rushed out, carrying the name with it. 'Quirisax!' it said in words only my mystical senses could hear. 'Quirisax! Quirisax!'

Flin gently rubbed one ear. "Must you be so loud?"

Arborax ignored him, an eminently sensible reaction in my opinion, and turned to me, his body language asking my opinion even if his mouth did not.

"Quirisax," I said, tasting the word on my tongue. The tree trunk pulsed in reaction, a shimmering and stirring of energies like an awaking sleeper. It felt almost alive. "It seems to fit."

"While this is all very interesting," said Flin. "We really need to begin. We have stayed in one place too long already."

This time he did have a point. I cast a look around the jungle but could see nothing. "You're right, let's go."

* * *

Moving Quirisax was hard (it was a rather large tree trunk after all) but between Flin's surprising strength, my magic and a little of Arborax's brute muscle we got it into place.

"Are you ready for your part?" I asked Flin and he nodded.

"It is my plan," said Flin. "I certainly hope I'm aware of my part. Which I gave myself. After selflessly developing the whole idea."

"Just asking."

"And do you, Danny, know your part of my plan, hum?"

"Yes I know. As soon as you start throwing fireballs I activate Quirisax."

"Good. If physical attacks are the only thing able to affect jago-ninis, we'll give it a physical attack to remember." His piece said, he slunk away into the forest. I, meanwhile, turned to look at the jago-nini, all seventy magical dinosaur feet of it. It was not a reassuring sight.

The plan called for Flin to attack from the front and me from the side. The temple was worryingly close but the tree line afforded me some cover. At the very least, the jago-nini did not react to my presence. I licked my lips. We'd been lucky with our crazy plans so far; I just had to hope that luck held

Flin's attack would be the signal to begin but I had preparations of my own.

"Arborax," I said, "watch for foes. Also, keep an eye out for Flin. If I don't notice, make me."

He nodded and I began.

At its most basic using Quirisax would be ritual work, thaumaturgy; theoretically that was one of my strengths but that didn't mean I knew what I was doing. Quirisax was unique, born of the joint enterprise of sidhe insanity, wizard magic and a little dragon naming thrown in for good measure. There were still some points of comparison, however.

I sank to the ground and crossed my legs. A circle would help me control the energy involved but would also limit the amount of power I had available. Since Quirisax would need a lot of power, even under my best case estimates, that wasn't an option. Instead I raised my left hand into the air and placed my right on the rune covered ghost-wood. It was already infused with energy but not enough, not nearly enough.

Power hung around me, the rich vibrant life of the Weapon. I pulled it in with my left hand and forced it out through my right. It flowed into the wood and, guided by my will, gathered in the silver coins. Quirisax sang as it readied itself, its runes and sigils growing stronger with every passing moment. I, by contrast, felt myself flagging after only moments. This kind of heavy-duty magical lifting was not my forte, not even close.

The seconds passed. They became minutes and I was barely hanging on. Then Flin struck.

Fist sized balls of white fire shot from the treeline and smashed into the jago-nini. They exploded in pyrotechnic fury but the jago-nini's hide was proof against even such attacks as these. That wasn't the point, though. The jago-nini turn its attention to Flin, its great head and giant neck swinging, and that gave me my chance.

"Danny," said Arborax in a low voice. "Now's the time."

"Aema!"

Quirisax shot forward like an oversized ballista bolt, pointed end first. The silver coins blazed in my mystical senses as they released their stored power into the rune arrays. Those rune arrays converted the energy into physical motion, and Quirisax accelerated even as it flew. The great spear took the jago-nini right at the joint of neck and body. Such was its immense power that it broke the skin and drove deep into the flesh; indeed, the jago-nini was forced a few stuttering steps to the left. And that's when the unbelievable happened.

Flin's fireballs continued to rain down but for a few brief seconds they did more than flare brightly. For those few seconds the jago-nini was in motion they burnt. Flesh sizzled, muscles chard and the jago-nini let loose a wailing cry.

My breath caught. Motion, that was the key. The jago-nini was only immune to magic while it stood still! It was just like in the story: as soon as the warriors forced the Mokele-mbembe to move, the river came flooding back. There it made perfect mundane sense but like so many things, there was a deeper meaning. It was only a damn to the forces of magic while it held its place.

I looked to Arborax and saw the same realisation there. "Go," I said. "Make sure Flin knows. I'll get it moving again even if it kills me." Which it very well might; the magic from before felt like a lead weight around my neck but adrenalin let me push through, at least for now.

Arborax nodded, readied his sword and tore off into the jungle. I turned to Quirisax, which was jutting out from the jago-nini's side. It was a good thing Arborax had given my weapon a name; I'd need the thaumaturgic link.

"Quirisax!" I said and thrust power into the word. It was a name. More than that. It was a true name. The connection opened between it and me, and I fed it all I could. I turned my body, right hand reaching forwards, left curved out behind, and any resemblance to dancing Egyptians was lost in the gravity of the moment.

Quirisax groaned as it forced its way forward and the jago-nini took a half step to the side. Fireballs exploded into its hide and bit deep, but the jago-nini stopped moving all too soon. Once it did, the fireballs slammed against an invisible wall, less than gnats.

"Move damn you," I said through gritted teeth. I dug deep and shoved again. The runes and sigils which covered Quirisax burnt as bright as the Noonday sun, but Flin's Summer fire burnt brighter still. I gave it everything I had and the jago-nini almost fell to the side. It's long tail whipped out, trying to counterbalance the motion, but smashed into the temple wall instead.

Dark light flashed and half the jago-nini's tail was simply gone. The remaining flesh and bone were black and necrotic tissue crept towards the body proper. My blood went cold. It was probably a good thing I'd not tried to scale the walls.

The jago-nini let loose a windy roar, which grew into a deep throated trumpeting growl as its rage peaked. It charged forward, heading right for Flin and his hail of fireballs. That meant the doorway was clear but I needed to save my friend first.

Now that the jago-nini was moving, Flin's fireballs were having consistent effect. They blasted holes in the beasts flesh and even as it charged, Flin was refining his spellwork. They became faster, thinner, less like balls and more like darts. When they hit, focused spears of fire punched deep towards the flesh that truly mattered.

Just before the jago-nini would reach Flin, I set my plan in motion. Time was tight but any earlier and I risked it adapting in time.

"Quirisax!" I shouted and sent energy coursing down the connection the name made. The jago-nini reacted as if shoved by a giant and went careening off to the side. Its stump of a tail twitched but without that counterbalance it lost control of its own momentum and fell. It hit the earth with the force of an explosion and tore it apart. It kept moving, a huge mass with all the immense power of a glacier, far more speed and even less control. It ripped three huge trees from the earth like they were nothing and then crashed into a forth, a truly gigantic thing with a trunk five meters thick. Wood groaned and roots pulled half from the ground but it held. With a creaking sigh, the jago-nini came to a halt and its invulnerability reasserted itself. It looked to be small comfort.

Black blood oozed from countless holes and the damage done to its tail could have been lethal all on its own. It let out a roar but it was a hollow noise, as if its center had been scooped out. It didn't try to rise, and I was in no state to move it again either.

Weariness seeped into my flesh as the adrenalin left my blood, and I fell backwards, my still crossed legs twisting. Strange lights played in the glass-bottle ceiling but whether it was a trick of the light or my mind finally giving up, I could not tell. Truth be told, I could tell very little. Even breathing was an effort. Every cell in my body felt drained and a small sadistic part of me (which sounded a lot like my old master) said it wasn't over yet, that I had one last magical working to perform.

Flin and Arborax appeared above me, faces which swum in and out of focus.

"Can't sleep yet, Danny," said Flin and lowered his hand towards my forehead. A heat shimmer hung around it and that energy flushed into my body, washing away my aches and pains. It drew a veil over my bone-deep weariness. It was still there but for the moment it was set to one side.

Arborax held out a hand and I groaned as I pulled myself up. "Almost done," he said, and I smiled.

"Almost."

We moved towards the temple at a slow walk. Even with Flin's magical rejuvenation I was not up to traveling much faster. As we neared the entrance, I extended my mystical senses, being careful to keep them away from the walls. There was nothing to sense. As far as I could tell, the entrance was exactly what it looked like, a large arch-shaped hole in the wall, a tunnel leading into the interior.

Flin raised a hand and light shone out but it showed nothing but walls. They were made from large blocks, set so closely together that there was scarcely a gap. Even my never-knife wouldn't have fit between.

We stepped inside.

After so long in the jungle it was strange to have something truly solid under my feet. The sounds were strange, too. Even the lightest of footfalls echoed with an unnerving resonance.

"Can we do it anywhere?" said Arborax, sword still held ready.

I shook my head. "For this kind of magic, I need the center. We keep going forward."

Light shone from a hundred feet ahead, an almost physical curtain which danced and whirled. I headed towards it, Flin on one side, Arborax on the other. "Once more into the breach," I muttered and took the final step. The light hit me almost like a physical wave but I blinked my eyes and looked around.

The centre of the temple was an octagonal room. An upraised dais sat in the center (square and perhaps ten feet to a side) and the sun shone down from above. Blue-white crystals stood in every second corner, large things with shadowed depths. Power buzzed against my senses; it was potent, so very potent, and for the first time I could feel the putrid sickness that hid at the Weapon's core.

"There," I said, pointing to the dais. "That's the Valley's heart and it's there I must seal it."

"Are we expecting company?" said Flin and cast his eyes and light around the room. There was only one entrance (two if you counted the skylight) but I couldn't blame him. I was feeling exposed too.

"We expect everything and anything," I said. "I'll draw a circle, one big enough to cover the entire room. That should keep things at bay or at least give us warning."

I shrugged off my backpack and drew a piece of chalk from one of my coat's innumerable pockets. Just before I began, a dark essence stirred at the center of the room.

"You can have power," it said in a voice of rotten treacle only I could hear. "Join me. I can make you strong. I can give you the power to kill gods and take their power. Use your key. Release my bindings fully."

I ignored it and started drawing my circle. It was big, clear of the walls and crystals by several feet but still encompassing most of the room. The Weapon continued its whispers.

"Seeking to restrain me is foolish," it said. "I am power; I am improvement; I am adaptation. Every moment I live is one I grow more powerful. My freedom is inevitable; free me now and you can be great."

My circle reached the halfway point and I kept going. The stone of the temple floor made a good surface and provided a strong, pure line.

"I am not without resources," said the Weapon. "Free me and I will not loose them against you. You think you have felt my wrath? You have not. I have guided you, shepherded you. You have seen my power; surrender, lest I strike you down."

"Your lies do not scare me," I said under my breath but I think Flin heard all the same. He shifted on his feet, a small, almost cat-like motion.

"Lies?" said the Weapon. "I take what I kill, change, adapt, improve. You have met the results of my last feeding but I have fed many times since then."

The light in the room changed and the blue haze drained from the four large crystals. The shadows at their hearts resolved. They were sidhe, winter sidhe. Their skin was almost completely without pigmentation but a dense network of icy veins lent it a blue cast. Hoar frost covered their heads in place of hair and their teeth were sharpened icicles. Their fingernails were miniature daggers made of the same.

"I've been experimenting," said the Weapon. "Learning."

"Too late," I said. The ends of my circle met and I sealed it with an act of will. Walls of invisible energy rushed up, completely surrounding the dais, Flin, Arborax and I. Sealed from the wider world, the Weapon's dark power seemed to grow and that meant its voice was all the stronger.

"I have gained knowledge of many things," said the Weapon and this time Flin heard the voice, his head moving to track the source. "Paths of attack, weaknesses. Perhaps you will be less eager to kill one such as this."

"Danny," said Flin, voice touched with worry. "Who's—" He never got the chance.

Black energy gathered on the dais and speared towards Flin. He saw it coming and managed to dodge half out the way, but it wasn't enough. Tar the colour of shadows oozed up his arm. It reached his face, even as Flin tried to claw it away, but the ooze held some insidious power. Flin opened his mouth to scream and it leapt inside, a putrid mass which distended his jaw and bulged in his throat. The scream ended only half vocalized as Flin began to choke.

"Flin!" I shouted and ran towards him but came up short. He'd stopped struggling. His head drooped like a marionette left to hang loose. "Flin?" I said again. "Are you..."

He looked up and his golden eyes were gone. In their place were inky black pools. He smiled and it was unlike any smile I'd ever seen on his face before; it would've looked out-of-place on a Winter sidhe but on a member of the Summer Court? It looked alien, wrong.

His fingers danced and black flames shot from him in a wave; I threw myself to the side and drew my air-dagger. The flames missed me by inches but burnt at my mystical senses as they passed.

"Damn it Flin," shouted Arborax. "What's gotten into you?"

Flin whipped around and faerie-fire flickered in his hand. A whip born of the same black flames as before appeared and he struck out. The tip shot towards Arborax but he just managed to bring his sword up in time.

"He's been possessed," I shouted and staggered back to my feet. My air-dagger felt slippery in my hand but I pointed it at Flin all the same. "Aema!"

The effort needed to cast the spell sent tremors through the barrier which kept my fatigue at bay, but I held together somehow. A condensed hurricane slammed towards Flin, but he sensed it coming. He spun back to face me and slashed out with his hand. My spell broke and split apart. He snarled and struck with his whip. Its black fire tip glowed with malevolent power. I spun to the side but not fast enough. It caught my off wrist and waves of pain shot through my body. I screamed, throat open, mind blank to anything but pain. The floor slammed into my face but I barely notice.

Arborax shouted something in his strange language and alien magic caressed my flayed senses. The pain ended and I looked up to seem Arborax charging Flin with his too-real sword. Flin struck out with his whip but it rebounded off Arborax's sword with the sound of a struck bell. The two came together, bare hands against magical steel, and it occurred to me for the first time that there was probably a fair amount of iron in Arborax's blade. Despite that, Flin was of the sidhe and running on Weapon juice to boot.

He blurred as he dodged Arborax's first slash and then drove a balled fist straight into Arborax's stomach. The burst of expelled air was almost solid and Arborax crumpled to the ground. Flin turned back to me, and there was barely anything I could do. The pain might be gone but it's after effects sure weren't. My hands shook even as I scrabbled for my air-dagger.

He advanced slowly. The whip disappeared and a long spear took its place. I could hardly move. My muscles spasmed every time I tried to use them. The dark perversion of Flin towered above me, his spear raised to run me through. My heart sounded an erratic beat. I was going to die. I tried to do something, force my limbs to work or my will to align for one last spell. In that moment, even a Death Curse was beyond me.

All seemed lost when Arborax choked out something from where he lay on the ground. The words rang with his alien magic and hit me like a splash of cold water to the face. Flin felt it too. He froze in place and the black fire spear evaporated away.

Behind Flin, Arborax rose to his feet, still half crouched over, and said it again. "The Company of the Three Heralds!"

The words hit me like ice and I realized what he was doing. The Company of the Three Heralds was a true name, our true name. Arborax had used it to bind us to our common purpose and Flin, possessed or not, was violating that common purpose.

Sweat rolled down Arborax's face and his expression was set in a grimace. "Can't hold him long."

Using every ounce of my White Council trained will I dragged myself to my knees. I crawled towards Flin, whose body was almost vibrating in place.

Stopping him had to be my top priority but I couldn't kill him, not after everything we'd been through, not for something that wasn't his fault. My fingers were numb lengths of meat but I grabbed a pack of chalk from my jacket and tried to open the flap. It twisted in my grip and fell to the ground with a dull thump. A rainbow of chalk spilled out across the gray floor. It didn't matter. I grabbed the nearest piece (a half use maroon stick) and scrawled a rough circle around Flin's feet.

"He's. Almost. Free," said Arborax, each word a battle fought and won.

I placed my hands on the circle and forced my will to align. It came in a flash and a wave of invisible force erupted upwards. At the exact same moment Flin broke free, though whether from the circle breaking Arborax's magic or through his own power I didn't know.

He tore forwards and his fists slammed into the circle, but it held. Black fire appeared in his hands and he slammed it against the barrier. The blow was a direct contest against my will but I gritted my teeth and held on. He was no dingonek; he had no will-poison stinger.

"Leave him demon," I said in my strongest voice, which was pretty weak right then.

Flin, or rather the power controlling him, just sneered at me. If it wanted a fight I'd give it one.

I took a deep breath and went through some calming exercises. My aches and pains flowed out and the Nevernever flowed in. Even sealed within a circle, I still felt connected, unified, one. My limbs stopped shaking and I felt able to face what came next.

"Arborax," I said in a more normal voice, not taking my eyes off Flin. "My pack. Get the salt and the candles. White."

He went to do so and a few seconds later appeared at my side. "Here," he said and his voice was hoarse, like someone had taken a cheese grater to his vocal cords. Magic always hits those with limited talent hard.

I used the salt to draw a second circle around Flin, this time without the scribbled wavy bits. Once I had an unbroken line, I added five white candles, placed within the line of salt at the points of a pentacle. White meant protection and purity; if the Weapon was anything, it wasn't that.

With a much smoother effort of will than last time, I energized my new circle. It whooshed into existence, like a rising curtain of silk, and I smiled at Flin; it was not a kindly expression.

"Leave," I said.

Flin just smiled his winter-fae smile.

"Leave."

His eyes danced with dark purpose.

"I tell you a third and final time. Leave."

He did nothing at all.

"So be it."

I drew in breath and energy both and then sent the latter coursing into my white pentacle. The inner chalk circle shattered and a wave of purifying energy slammed into Flin. He screamed a hellish double scream, two voices, one the Summer sidhe I knew, the other something much older and much darker.

"By my name and yours I command you to leave!" I shouted, not letting up with my energy bombardment. "By the Company of the Three Heralds, whose covenants you break, I command you to leave. By the debt you owe me, which is yet unfulfilled, I command you to leave!"

A black slug of energy burst up from Flin's mouth. He collapsed to the ground but it slammed against my salt circle in a crack of lightning.

"I grant you no safe passage," I shouted. "For what you've done, die!"

From all around, energy came to my call, power and life and the Weapon's own dark potency. I channeled it into my purifying pentacle and an almost solid column of blinding white light shot into the air. For a few brief seconds the black-sludge stood like the blast-shadow of a nuclear weapon but it was too weak and cut off from the wider Weapon. It dissolved into nothing. After a few seconds I let the power behind my attack do likewise.

The light faded and I saw Flin. He lay in the circle, breathing slowly but well. His skin was burnt red in places but he didn't look about to perspire.

"And now you," I said as I turned to face the dais. "Arborax." I didn't turn around. "Don't break the salt circle. Until I bind this thing, it could still re-infect Flin."

"Right," croaked Arborax.

I started walking forward.

"Power," the Weapon whispered into my ear. "You have seen what I can offer. I could grant you that kind of might."

"You grant slavery," I said.

"Not for you, never for you," it said.

"That's all you ever grant, all you _can_ grant. I've seen you, Weapon. I've seen you as only a person gifted with the Sight can. I am of the wise, a Wizard trained in the mysteries of the White Council. Do not seek to deceive me."

I stepped onto the dais and the dark fossilizing power grew all the stronger. This chamber might be the center of the Weapon's power but this dais was the center of the center.

Other wizards hung about me, recorded forever in the energy, almost like ghosts. I watched them bind and unbind the Weapon, each and every one, from ancient crones, to clean cheeked boys.

Burkwater was there, his image still crisp and fresh. At the other extreme, I saw Merlin Dane, a psychic image so old it lacked proper features. I noticed something else, too. The newer the image, the harder the binding and the easier the unbinding. The Weapon had not lied when it said its escape was inevitable. Each time the White Council loosed it against their foes, it gained in power and moved that little bit closer to breaking free. If the White Council continued using its weapon, it would become too powerful for even Merlin Dane's spells to contain. That was for another day, though. Right now, I had to focus on the present.

I was tired, battered and will-weary from too much magic, but those seemed only small problems right then. I clutched to the things I did have like lifelines, my maroon chalk, my white candles and my dispatch bag filled with its vital cargo.

It was time to begin. I opened my dispatch bag and took out the Key, a golden sculpture consisting of four monkeys holding up a crystal. Mai said it went in the very center of the dais so that's where I put it. It clunked as I set it down and I made sure it was positioned correctly. It was and I drew a circle around it using my chalk. Five white candles came next, set on the points of an invisible pentacle. Their light flickered as I lit them and the dark power drew back just a bit. As with Flin, white light was a purifying force. I sealed the circle shut with an effort of will and a spark of energy. Inside, the crystal held by the monkeys started to glow, a soft white light.

So far so good.

Next came the outer circle. I drew it large and wide, covering most of the dais. Then I set another five candles in place, on lines extending out from the first five. A second spark of energy closed the circuit and brought the circle to life. I tested it with my mystical senses; it was a strong and true barrier.

Everything was right; everything was perfect. The first circle held the key and the second held me; this was classic ritual work, the kind of thing apprentices did dozens of times before they earned their stole. I sure as hell did. Indeed, it was reassuring in a way, an everyday set of simple actions I could cling too. What came next would be the difficult part.

I sat down, crossed my legs and closed my eyes. Deep within the fastness of my mind, I gathered my will. Mine was a wizard's will, a force of such terrible potency as to put the very energies of creation at the holder's command. By the exalted company of the White Council, I might be weak, but by any lesser measure it — I — was truly remarkable.

The Weapon and I struck at the same time. Its dark energy crashed against my will, a seemingly infinite tide fit to sweep away the nations of the world. It was like standing alone before a tsunami but my circles were flood-walls and the candles reinforcing rebar. The Weapon's power broke against mine and I surged forward, claiming ground left undefended by the breaking.

It counterattacked at once. Psychic dingoneks jumped from all sides, their sabretoothed mouths opened wide, but I turned my will against them and they vanished. That gave the Weapon an opening and dark spears stabbed towards me. I stopped them too, but the Weapon seized back much of its lost ground.

A will more resembling continental drift than anything human ground into mine. It covered everything; it covered the very universe. I sent power surging into my extended pentacle. Ten white candles blazed against my mystical senses and the Weapon's will dissolved.

For one brief moment, its core showed clear, a twist in space, a conjunction of forces I could neither understand nor properly describe. Chains hung around it. They bound the Weapon, surrounding and limiting its power, but there was a gap through which it could express its will, a dark eye which swirled with potent power like the center of a whirlpool.

And there, in its heart, I saw the beginning of things.

* * *

The Weapon hadn't always been a power; in fact, once, long ago, it had no power at all. Back in the reaches of the past, before man, before apes, it was a solitary place.

A single tree stood at the edge of a dark pool of unmoving water. The sun hung high in the sky and a long shadow spilled out from the tree, breaching the fastness of the pool.

And then Death came.

It came in the form of a strange creature, a large lizard which had an almost dog-like head and a frill upon its back. It drunk of the water but the bank gave way and it crashed in. The splash sent droplets spraying onto the surrounding ground but the lizard could not likewise escape. It died there, died where shadow met water, at a place which was a conjunction of places. From its death came power and the first spark of the Weapon's eventual life.

The pool expanded and more trees grew around its side. More animals came and more animals died. Their power was absorbed, taken by the pool and trees and the interactions that lay between them. It was yet unaware, yet less than even an animal, but somehow it worked its magic. It twisted things. Dead animals drew more animals, which then died in turn.

Greater animals came, summoned by the emerging glimmers of potency. These beasts bore the spark of magic in their blood, the power of the spirit world. The Weapon feasted upon their power and found itself a twice made thing, at once a location in the material world but also a spiritual construct which reached into the Nevernever. It ate still more with both its mouths, but the flesh of the spirit creatures was so much sweeter.

Time past, possibly centuries, possibly millennia, possibly millions of years. The Nevernever side continued to grow while the physical pool and trees withered away. The time came when the Weapon shrugged off its ties to Earth completely and set its eyes solely on the rich hunting grounds of the spirit world.

In those days it ate well and grew strong. Other powers rose to oppose it, but it either bested them and ate their power or retreated and survived to feast another day. It learnt to read the turning of the ages. When the power cosmic waned, it slept; when it waxed, it awoke and hunted anew.

Once, while it slept, strange creatures came to inhabit its Nevernever body, bipeds with four arms and avian feathers down their limbs. They recognised its power, even sleeping, and built a temple to its glory and majesty. It was from this temple and the rites performed inside its walls that the Weapon's true-self emerged. It became a thinking being, a hunter bound by its nature, yes, but capable of thought and directed will. Upon emergence its first act was to scour the creatures which sort to inhabit and worship it, killing and devouring them for the small sparks of power they provided.

In time it came to pass that the Weapon regretted this willful and unthinking act. It withdrew the patterns of all it had ever eaten and made servants from the best parts of each. These servants it bound with chains of promised power and sent them forth to gather more nourishment. This task they did and did well, even when the ages turned and the Weapon returned to sleep. Their efforts ensured that the Weapon emerged from its slumbers already strong and powerful, not weakened by long hibernation.

Again time past in untold eons. Then He came. He was almost like the creatures who built the temple but his body was shaped differently and his will was like a focused inferno. He stole into the Weapon as it slumbered, sneaking past servants set to watch and guard. He made it to the Weapon's very heart, the long abandoned temple that still served as the linchpin of its waking self. There he worked great magic, spells which bound and limited the Weapon. Even as the Weapon awoke to crush the insect, it was already too late. The magic sunk to its very core and it could only scream in impotent fury.

The creature said his name was Dane. He said the Weapon was now his.

* * *

I blinked and shook my head. The Weapon's history smoldered in my mind, almost as if seen through a Soulgaze, and the experience left me dazed. The Weapon sensed my weakness and struck. Energy bore out from its dark eye and I sent my power to meet it, a reckless use of force which pulled the very heat from my flesh. Aided by my circles and candles I survived the attack, if only just. As the Weapon strained against my defenses, I split off a part of my will and sent a flicker of energy into the Key.

It shone with light and countless runes appeared along its length, covering the monkeys, the crystal and the base. Within the heart of the crystal shone a mark, a master mark: Merlin Dane's sigil. Long dormant enchantments came to life and shot towards the core, but the Weapon saw the attack coming. It pulled back from my circles and raised a dark shield of stagnant power to intercept the Key's attack. The two forces met and the Key's assault exploded like an atomic bomb in the depths of space, so very potent but up against something even bigger than itself.

But the battle wasn't yet over.

I threw my will at the Weapon, all I was formed into a single attack. We warred; it was more powerful that I could ever hope to be, but I was a knife while it had to defend an area fit to make solar systems look small.

It broke before my power and the Key's enchantments leapt through the gap. It went straight for the dark eye. Flows of power whipped out and the Weapon moved to counter, streams of energy which moved in patterns ancient when humanity was yet young. I threw my will in aid of the Key. It was like pushing against a mountain but the mountain moved!

The Weapon roared, a psychic scream which bounced off the circle and grounded in the only place it could: my head. It tore into my mind, shattering my harden will, but it was already too late. The Key flared one final time and the lock slammed shut. I fell back too, more tired than I'd ever been. The barrier Flin had placed against my fatigue dissolved like tissue paper in a storm. It took all my energy to open my eyes one final time but I needed to know. No light came down through the skylight. Night had come to Dane's Weapon. It slept and would do so until awakened again.

My success hung like a solitary star in that dark night's sky and, with its light alone, I fell into a deep, exhausted sleep.


	7. Chapter 7

_The Dresden Files is copyright Jim Butcher. This story is licensed under the Creative Commons as derivative, noncommercial fiction._

* * *

"And I'm telling you, you're not getting out until Danny says it's okay."

It took a moment for me to recognize the voice. Arborax...

"It's fine." This time it was Flin. "The Valley is sealed. It must be."

"We wait for Danny."

It took me a moment to work out what was happening but when I did, I groaned. "Let him out, Arborax."

"Danny!" said Arborax. "You're awake. Are you okay?"

I groaned again and pushed myself up. "First, let Flin out. It is safe, I promise. And two, I've felt better but I'll survive." Fatigue still hung heavy behind my eyes but the worst of it was gone; I now merely wanted to sleep for a week.

"You heard, Danny," said Flin. "Let me go. Use some of that free will you're so famous for. Like I've been telling you too. Ever since I woke up. Five hours ago." He stood within the chalk circle, hands pressed against the invisible barrier.

Rather than rising to the bait, Arborax just flicked out with his foot. The circle broke with a crack of energy and Flin stepped forward. I think Arborax half hoped Flin would fall on his face but sidhe are rarely so clumsy.

"How long have I been out?" I said.

"Near twelve hours," said Arborax. "I've kept watch."

"So have I," said Flin. "On account of being trapped in this salt circle. Which you, Arborax, refused to break. Leaving me trapped. In here. For five hours."

"Let it go, Flin," I said. "I told him to keep you inside until I sealed the Valley. Arborax did the sensible thing; he couldn't have known that was done until I told him. It did possess you and try to kill us."

"I suppose so," said Flin, but rolled his eyes.

"Right," I said and pushed myself up. Arborax had taken my 'don't break circles' instructions to heart. Both my chalk circles on the dais were intact, still buzzing gently with energy. On Earth, sunset and sunrise would wash away such things but the Nevernever was a less certain mistress.

I broke the inner of my two circles and picked up the now deactivated Key. It seemed lighter than before and I slipped it back into my dispatch pouch.

"We should make a start as soon as possible," I said, even as my body moaned and ached in a language all its own. "It's a long way home."

"On that note," said Arborax, "I've been thinking. Charon said to throw our obols in water; he said nothing about the River Styx. And there is a large river not far from here. Remember looking down from the hill? This temple is in one of the bends."

"If Charon could come here, why didn't he do exactly that?" said Flin, clearly skeptical of the whole idea.

"I don't know, but there is no downside to trying. It could save us days of walking. And I don't know about you, but many of the dangers we faced on the way here had nothing to do with the Valley and I'm not keen on meeting them again."

"Arborax might have a point," I said. "When I asked Charon for passage, it was to the colossi. I was just following my instructions; it never occurred to me to ask if he could bring us right here. Even if he couldn't, that doesn't mean the reverse isn't true. At worse it costs us a few hours."

"Fine," said Flin. "If we're attempting this, let's at least be quick about it."

* * *

We packed and were off within thirty minutes. With the sky darkened the Weapon was a very different place. No birds cried in the trees and the only noise was the gentle rustling of leaves in the night.

"Spooky," I said under my breath and held up my arm. "Anadaio!" Diffuse white light spilled from my hand, half illuminating the jungle and casting long, deep shadows.

"Danny," said Arborax as we set off towards the river. "You sealed the Valley, but what happens to all the creatures?" He looked about, staring into the dark trees. "Are they still, um, out there?"

"The strongest should go to sleep," I said. "The rest will run themselves dry. The Valley's been feeding them power, you see. They burn far too bright to survive on their own. I was told six hours would make the Valley safe to travel. It's been twelve. Look."

I swept my light until I found the corpse of the jago-nini, lying against the half-shattered trunk of a giant tree. It was mostly sludge now, black tar which partly held a shape in places but was entirely liquid in others. Quirisax stuck proudly from the putrid mess.

Arborax nodded at my words and evidence but didn't look much happier. Truth be told, as we reached the tree line even I began to have doubts. In the dark, the tangled jungle took on strange shapes and terrifying visages. The shadows from my light cast distorted faces onto gnarled trunks, and knots of darkness high in the branches became predators just waiting to pounce. I stilled my nerves and pushed on.

The river wasn't far and we reached it after only an hour's walk. As the crow flies it was practically on the temple's doorstep, but between the darkness and the dense vegetation we moved at a snail's pace.

"It's big," said Arborax as he stared out across the expanse of water.

"There are larger in Summer," said Flin.

"There are larger on Earth, too," I said, "but it's still impressive."

The water cut a dark ribbon through the jungle. My magical light reflected and danced off its surface and the direct reflection hung like a miniature moon.

"Do we just throw our obols in the water?" asked Arborax.

"Since we don't know if this will work, let's place them in gently," I said, "under a big stone so they won't wash away."

He nodded and stepped forward, doing just that. I did likewise a moment later; the water was ice-cold. Flin sighed and followed me.

We waited. Silence reigned. Nothing happened. Then the mist rolled in.

It came in billowing rolls, dark and white all at the same time. At its heart was a ferry, Charon's ferry. Arborax smiled as wide as I'd ever seen and even Flin wore only a half scowl. He might be proven wrong, but it did save us several days travel.

The ferry drew up beside the bank and a gangplank thunked down, landing in the mud.

"Why if it isn't my three hero specials," said Charon and then let out a barking boom of laughter. "All aboard." He looked much the same as ever, tall and wild but his beard might have been a bit better kept. The fishing pole was gone, however.

"We weren't sure you'd come," said Arborax as he walked up the plank. Flin and I followed behind.

"With true obels to call me?" said Charon and clapped his great hands. "How could I not? Never would have found this place without them and I doubt I could even now. But enough of that. On board, quickly now. These currents are not mine and could sweep us away if we do not hurry."

"The obols," I began, pointing down at the river.

"I've got them," he said and flashed his hand. Between his fingers sat three silver coins. "Payments made are mine my right. Not even this strange place can keep them from me."

We made it onto the deck and Charon heaved the gangplank back up. "Now," he said once it was lying next to the rail. "Where too this time?"

"A moment," I said and pulled Flin and Arborax into a huddle. It took us a few seconds but we managed to agree a destination which suited us all. "Do you know the Three Pig Inn on the Summer Wine River?"

"Aye, I know it," said Charon. "In the Brambles?"

"That's it," I said.

"Easy route," he said. "Make yourselves comfortable. This journey will take some hours."

* * *

The ferry chugged along, passing through mists and water both. At some point I couldn't quite identify, we exited the Weapon's glass bottle and entered different waters. Trees with purple leaves and yellow trunks lined the banks and a magenta sun burnt overhead. Harlequin clouds played across its surface. I watched the banks with half an eye; as the demons proved on the River Styx, even flowing water is not an insurmountable barrier to a determined attacker.

Light footfalls sounded behind me and I turned my head. Flin walked towards me. We were the only two on deck. Arborax was below somewhere and Charon was in the command cabin.

"There's something we need to talk about," he said and his smile was the cat who got the cream filled mouse.

"Hum?" Best be non-committal.

"It's about the true purpose of this mission."

Damn. "True purpose?" I said as easily as I could. "As I said, the White Council monitors the status of many dark gods and other powerful beings. They sent me to lock this one back up."

Flin just smiled and shook his head. "I'm a sidhe, Danny. Do you really think you can play word games with me? You know too much, let me see too many things and slipped up one too many times. The 'Valley' or should I say the 'Weapon', it's the White Council's isn't it? The only thing I don't know is why use it now. Revenge for Dresden's betrayal to Winter?"

I sighed. There was no point in denying things further; I'd need to deal my way out of this and that meant playing nice with Flin. "We didn't release it now," I said. "We released it two months ago. It was to be part of our master stroke against the Red Court. But there was..." I shook my head. "There were problems. Our agent lost time somewhere. A week in an hour, you know how it is. By the time we knew what was happening, it was already attacking people."

Flin nodded his head but stayed silent.

"Flin," I said and looked him in the eyes. "I'm honestly sorry about your Uncle and the Winter Fae; I did what I could once I knew it was happening."

"Oh very well," he said and rolled his hand. "My uncle will recover, as I told you, and I can't say I'm upset over Unseelie deaths. Others won't be as forgiving as me, however."

I let out a long sigh. Never trust a faerie, especially one you were friends with. "What do you want?"

"A favor, unlimited, any time and where."

"Two, and no treason or action against the White Council or its interests. Think about it, Flin. A wizard is a powerful thing."

"Three," countered Flin, "with your conditions."

"You will report nothing you have learnt about the White Council or the Weapon on this trip. You will not make use of this information in any way, nor let others do so. Pretend you learnt it while inside a Threshold as a benevolent entity."

"Yes, yes," said Flin. "Standard 'don't tell anyone' agreement'. Do you agree?"

"I'll agree but I owe you these favors, understand? You, not anyone else. No selling my debt or giving it up in any way. I don't want to end up owning your uncle or some other sidhe who you lose at poker to."

"That could be difficult," said Flin and frowned, which did bring me some relief even if the rest of his reply did not. If Flin hadn't been taking this seriously, he would have made light of the point. "If I owe someone and have no other way to pay the debt, my property could be confiscated under Summer Law."

"And debts are property?"

"Some would say they are the only real kind."

"Reciprocal promises? No debt but an obligation on my part."

Flin considered the idea for a few moments before shaking his head. "Can't do it, sorry. Would if I could but it really is a 'can't do' thing. It's too unequal." The chains of faerie power might hold Flin yet loosely but they did hold him.

"Debts?" said Arborax and I think both Flin and I jumped; I sure as hell did. "You can't owe each other debts for actions while members of the company. The magic prevents it."

I shared a quick glance with Flin before turning to Arborax. "This is something else. Nothing to do with the company. We have acceptable terms; we're just working out a payment scheme." Hopefully that would serve as a gentle nudge not to ask what the source of the debt was.

"Danny doesn't want me selling his debt," said Flin and flashed a roguish smile.

Arborax looked thoughtful for a moment before saying, "If it's a real problem, the Company of the Three Heralds could own the debt. We'd agree Flin has sole control over it but can neither sell nor otherwise transfer it."

"That could work," said Flin nodding slowly. "Since I am still part of the company, I can take selfless actions on its behalf. Normally I wouldn't be able to just give away something this important but... Yes, I am amenable. Danny?"

"Sounds okay to me," I said. It sounded a bit like Earthly shell companies. That was the last thing the Nevernever needed, in my opinion, but I wasn't going to turn it down if it meant I was benefiting.

"There's just one thing," said Arborax. "If the company is to own this debt, I can't dissolve it completely. I'll set it in abeyance, but it will still be there, in some fashion."

"It will still affect us?" I asked.

"Not exactly. Its magic will be dormant but it could be reactivated at a later date. We'd all need to agree to that, though."

That didn't sound overly onerous. "Okay."

"Then we have a deal," said Flin.

"Based upon our agreed upon terms," I interjected before Flin could go further. "And with the understanding that the Company of the Three Heralds owns the debt, under the system outlined by Arborax."

"Quite," he said and held out his hand. I took it and he said, "We have a deal. We have a deal. We have a deal."

"We have a deal. We have a deal. We have a deal," I said back. "By and on my power we have a deal."

It was done. Now I just had to hope owing Flin didn't come back to bite me too hard. It surely would to some degree.

* * *

Several hours later Charon's ferry pulled up to the Three Pig Inn's jetty. It stuck out into the wide but slow Summer Wine River and made a pleasant change from scrambling on muddy banks.

"All off," said Charon and slapped a meaty hand covered with small scars down on my shoulder; I tried my best not to buckle. "As passengers go, you three are alright. If you plan another trip to the Underworld, give me a call."

"Out of all my deathly ferry men you are definitely my favorite," said Flin with a straight face.

Charon boomed with laughter and slapped his other hand down on Flin's shoulder, who did buckle for all that he could be a mite superhuman at times.

"I plan to live a long life before I travel this way again," said Arborax.

"There's wisdom to that," said Charon.

"Thank you for your help," I said, a touch more formal than my companions.

"Think nothing of it," he said and removed his hand from my shoulder. "Now be off with ya'."

I nodded once more and headed for the jetty, Flin and Arborax trailing behind. The deck of the ferry move rhythmically under my feet but I timed my half-jump well and stepped onto solid planks. After so long aboard ship, it felt almost strange.

"A round of drinks before we go our separate ways?" said Arborax, motioning towards the Inn. "I'm buying."

"I'm game," I said. Free drinks were almost always a good thing.

"Lead on," said Flin.

We set off up the jetty and towards the Inn's water access doors. They were thrown open and nothing but a welcoming sight.

There's a saying in the Nevernever: you can't go wrong with a Three Pig Inn. They're an institution and have completely integrated themselves into Nevernever traveler culture, despite being relatively new as these things are judged. They are one of the few places you can reliably find a strong threshold and good wards, not to mention quality service and filling food, no matter your particular pallet. There had to be hundreds these day, run as something of a family franchise, but the inn on the Summer Wine was the oldest, biggest and first.

It stood three stories tall, made of well-set brick and stronger magic. It had been built centuries before by the original three brothers to withstand a powerful Wolf Demon and had only grown since. The waterfront doors and the jetty were perhaps the newest part (at a little over fifty years old) but were already seeing use. A set of half-submerged tables were occupied by a motley collection of giant trout, salmon and a lone beaver. They seemed to be holding a political activist group of some kind, although I couldn't quite work out their particular cause. They were definitely very passionate about it, however. Truth be told, I didn't pay them that much attention. This was the Brambles, where Faerie gave way to Fairy Tale.

A sign hung above the open doors, moving slowly in the wind. It showed the Inn's logo of three forward facing pigs, and below it was the classic motto, written in one of the Faerie Tongues: 'Be welcome and enter freely but do no harm'. There was magic in the words and in the bricks and in the ground. The original three brothers had been talented warders, and their descendants inherited the skill.

I stepped inside and breathed in the smells of rich food and sweet drink.

People talked all around.

"Greatest victory since the Wonderland Wars," said one.

"Maeve's on the ascendance," said another.

"Sent those monsters right packing."

"The Redcap will keep the Lord Marshal's baton, mark my words, even when Mab returns."

Flin shot me a look but I just nodded to the bar. It was manned by a comely lass with flowing red hair and sparkling green eyes. Given that those eyes also had a touch of cat to them, she probably had a measure of faerie blood in her veins.

"What will you be having?" she said and set down the glass she'd been cleaning.

"I'll have a glass of the house red," said Arborax. After a second's hesitation he added, "wine not blood."

"Starlight ale?" said Flin and received a nod in reply.

"Beer," I said. "Whatever you have on hand. And some news."

"Aye?" she said, a note of wariness entering her tone.

While Arborax handed over some silver, I asked. "What's this about Maeve?"

"Oh that," she said as she set about getting our drinks. "You been out of touch? All anyone's talking about 'round these parts."

"We've been traveling, yes."

"Well, for the past month there's been attacks by monsters, coming from this place people call the 'Valley'. Well, this Valley struck deep into Winter but Lady Maeve called the Unseelie host and met it in battle. She fought it for three straight days, they say, and on the field every minute she was. These are terrible beasts, you understand, but Maeve wasn't afraid. She faced down the Valley until it broke and ran, then chased it half way back to the deep Never."

"But that was—" started Flin but I kicked him in the shin. "Why did you do that—" I kicked him again and he took the hint.

"Thank you for the news and drinks," I said and took my beer. Flin took his starlight ale and Arborax his wine. We found an out-of-the-way table on the second floor and sat down.

Once seated and alone, Flin glared at me. "Why did you kick me?"

"Because you wouldn't shut up."

"And why should I? It was us who dealt with the Valley, not Maeve."

"Do you want to tell her she's wrong?" I said. Sidhe couldn't lie but they could be wrong; they tended not to be happy about it, however.

"The displeasure of a Winter Fae is not my problem, Danny."

"It could be your very pointed problem," I said. "You heard people. Given your hearing, you're probably still hearing them. Maeve's star is on the rise and she rules Winter while Mab is absent. Oh there will be other power blocks. Mab loyalists like the Leanansidhe. Independents like Santa. But she sits the permafrost throne in Arctis Tor. Do you really want to make her an enemy? I doubt even your uncle could shield you from that."

"You think we should keep what we did a secret, Danny?" said Arborax but I shook my head.

"A secret, no. Hand in your reports. Let the people who matter, know. But let's not shout it from the rooftops. I like my body without icicle stab wounds.

"If you insist," said Flin and nursed his ale for awhile, sulking.

* * *

"So how do we do this?" I said. We stood in front of the Three Pig Inn's road entrance. It was here we'd go our different ways.

"First we need a circle," said Arborax. "It's not strictly necessary but it helps."

"Want me to do it?" I asked.

"I've got it."

While Arborax drew the circle with his sword, I turned to Flin. "Any idea when you'll be calling in the favors?"

Flin flashed me an enigmatic smile, still stained by a touched of his not-entirely-forgotten petulance. "We'll just have to wait and see."

"Done," said Arborax and sealed the circle with a dab of blood. It sparked against my mystical senses, weak as circles went but still more than fit for purpose. "Now that we're isolated, we set the company in abeyance by saying it's so. Just say, 'The Company of the Three Heralds is in abeyance."

Shrugging, I said, "'The Company of the Three Heralds is in abeyance." The energy in the circle stirred.

"'The Company of the Three Heralds is in abeyance," said Flin and the potential grew.

"'The Company of the Three Heralds is in abeyance," said Arborax and alien magic cracked against my senses.

It was done. That was all there was to say.

Our task complete we went our separate ways. Flin headed Earthwards, towards the Bramble Marches and his place at court. Arborax went in the opposite direction, deeper into the Nevernever and the Kingdom of the Towering Mountains. I forged my own trail, a diagonal path which took me to the Hidden Halls of Edinburgh.

After my recent adventures, it was an almost pleasant walk. I went through mountains and under rivers. A friendly rainbow offered me a lift and set me down next to an ice-covered pool, saving me several hours. From there it was easy to skirt the Winter border and arrive at my destination.

I strode out of the dense pine trees, just as I had many times before, and almost jumped out of my skin when a Warden blade appeared at my throat. It was the new kind, raw and rough and it burnt against my skin and mystical senses. Its razor edge also felt far too close and I tried very hard not to swallow. Instead I just concentrated on staring dead ahead.

After a few seconds it withdrew. "Damn it, Danny," said Smyth. "You can't just wander up anymore."

The air shimmered as the veil dropped and she flickered into view. At another time the easy skill would've made me faintly jealous but I had other things on my mind, sharp pointy things. Her round face bore a frown and not a smile. It looked odd and out-of-place

I licked my lips and resisted the urge to touch my neck. "Smyth," I said. "What's going on?" Something stirred at the back of my mind. "The Toulon raid?" I hadn't thought about it in days.

Smyth nodded. "That was just the start. There have been attacks across the Mediterranean Sea, dozens. It's even worse in the Americas."

That was... Scary. I mostly dealt with Nevernever powers, not those that made their home on Earth, but the scale struck me all the same. "Who?"

Smyth let loose a bark of angry laughter. "Who's not?" She shook her head. "A dozen groups. The Red Court's destruction left a power vacuum and it seems the waiting is over. The worst are the Fomor. They're swarming out of the sea in numbers we never dreamed they had."

"When and how long?" I asked.

"Things really kicked off around the 9th, and it's December 14th today, seven days since I last saw you."

I nodded slowly; while it was almost impossible to directly compare times between Earth and the Nevernever, Winter would probably have still been occupied with the Valley at that point. Was there a connection? "Thanks. I need to go report now."

She nodded and pointed towards the high earth mound which held the gateway. "Go, and use the path in the future. We're all on edge, and others might not be as restrained as me." For the first time, I seriously considered doing just that.

Smyth's tension was reflected in the other wizards I saw. They kept their heads low and hurried through the corridors. Even the wardhounds that guarded the Intelligence Office seemed on edge. They followed me with their eyes and heads as I walked towards them but didn't attempt to block my path.

Ancient Mai looked up as I entered and motioned towards the Lock Room. Its wards buzzed against my senses as they activated, leaving us isolated and alone.

The first thing she said was, "There's strange magic in your aura. Summer and something else." Her eyes narrowed.

"Towering Mountains," I said. "Dragon magic taught to humans. I was forced to request aid but I used the cover story. It's intact." Which was technically true.

She nodded, accepting my explanation. "And the mission?"

"Successful. Dane's Weapon has been sealed." I pulled the Key from my dispatch bag and handed it over. "But I'd strongly recommend never using it again. I've seen its heart. It's evil and grows only stronger. The power is so thick in the central chamber that you can see the imprints of past wizards. It becomes harder to seal each time it is used."

Mai gave me a carefully neutral expression. "Your report will be taken under advisement."

I took a breath. "There's one more thing I need to know."

"Need?"

"Yes," I said, just a touch of heat creeping into my voice, "need. The Congo in the nineteenth century. The White Council used the weapon. It killed people, lots of people. Humans. I need to know why."

The weight of ages didn't suddenly settle on Mai's shoulders, but subtle changes around the eyes made her look a lot more human. "Wizard Archdale," she said. "It was never our intention that people would die. We were trying to enforce the First Law, not break it. The scramble for Africa had just begun. European powers were invading the Congo area. The native sorcerers objected. They raised their powers and spirit allies against the invaders. They were killing with magic. If we had just stood by, the area could have sunk into a pit of darkness able to swallow the entire world."

She shook her head. "So the then Merlin decided to act. We sent wardens to arrest the sorcerers and deployed Dane's Weapon against the spirits."

"Only it went wrong?" I said.

"It went wrong. The Weapon went too far. It breached the barrier to Earth, something it had never done before, and began killing everything in sight. By the time we regained control it was already too late. Thousands were dead, the native sorcerers were wiped out almost to a man and the damage was done. The Merlin took responsibility and retired before the year was out. Does that answer your question?"

I nodded but inwardly I was asking a different question now: and yet to used it again. Instead I said, "Thank you for telling me." Like so many things, I didn't know what to think.

"There is one last thing," said Mai. "Wizard Burkwater's funeral is in two days' time. If you choose to attend, I hope I can trust your discretion concerning matters which best remain secret."

"Yes ma'am." What else could I say?

_The end_


End file.
